Sins of the Fathers
by Mary Ruth Keller
Summary: The Cigarette-Smoking Man sets Mulder and the son of another old colleague against each other. Mulder and Scully come away with evidence about the Consortium they weren't supposed to find, and may have to die to keep. Begins after the events of the Third Season "Syzygy".
1. Reconciliation and Deconstruction

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Summary: The Cigarette-Smoking Man sets Mulder and the son of another old colleague against each other. Mulder and Scully come away with evidence about the Consortium they weren't supposed to find, and may have to die to keep.

Note to the reader: The stories listed as authored by Mary Ruth Keller are all in a single universe, the Kuxan Sum Cycle. While each is an investigation that stands alone, they should be read in the following order for the plot and character developments to make the most sense.

**The Caroline Lowenberg Trilogy**

_Sins of the Fathers  
__Xibalba  
__Twelfth Night  
_Saytr Play: _Rustic Suite_

**The Dana Scully Trilogy**

Prologue: _Time Out of Joint  
__Passages in Memory  
_Interlude: _Roman de la Pendrell  
__Archaea  
__Zurvan  
_Saytr Play: _Anath_

**The Sandra Ann Miller Trilogy**

_Chermera_

More following...

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_Sins of the Fathers by _Mary Ruth Keller

Part I - _Reconciliation and Deconstruction_

=====o============================================o=====

Washington, D. C.  
February 2, 1996  
Friday 9:45 pm

A knock rang through the silent, shrouded office.

"Yes?"

"I have the files you requested, Sir." The young man's voice quavered slightly on the last word.

_Good,_ mused the office's occupant as he puffed his ever-present cigarette. _I like to keep them on their toes. Don't have to do much to them anymore, my reputation seems to speak for me._ "Well, bring them in."

The door opened, just enough to admit the stocky agent, but no further.

The additional light was sufficient to make the older man behind the desk blink rapidly. "These are all the data on our problem?" He accepted the thick folder.

The younger man blanched. "Well, no sir. Some of the information is still coming down from the archive. It was microfiched last year." He had heard stories about his superior; his time in service went back to World War II, back when there had been a "real" enemy to fight. He had heard he was ruthless, cunning; he had more "information" on major world leaders than had J. Edgar Hoover himself. He would stop at nothing to put the world right, as he saw it.

"Very well." The light at the tip of a Morley flared briefly, then bobbed up and down. "Bring the other material to me when it is ready." The cigarette, now in the hand, waved briefly toward the door.

Assuming he was dismissed, the agent turned to go.

But the old man had more instructions. "Oh, kill the hall lights when you leave. I need some quiet to think."

"Yes, Sir." There was a click as the latch engaged. Shortly, the sliver of light under the door vanished.

The old man rose slowly, walking to stand by the window. It was time to plan his next move. How much information to release, how much to conceal. He had to trim his strategies to the temperaments of the players he wished to engage. He smiled to himself, a brief, joyless grimace that no longer reached his eyes.

He had never thought, given the events of a few months ago, to be in the advantage now. Bill Mulder's boy had been brought low by his own weaknesses, just as his father had. For Bill, it had been alcohol, slowly destroying him, consuming the restless mind until only a shell remained. It had almost been a mercy, how fate had forced him to order the termination of his old friend. Otherwise he would have told what he knew to his equally bright, but uncontrollable young son.

The boy was brilliant, no doubt about it. In fact, he himself had hoped to use Fox Mulder when he had come back from Oxford, looking to distinguish himself tracking down serial killers, but then Mulder had found those X-Files in the basement. Then, too, he had recovered the memories surrounding the loss of his sister, setting him off on his own quest for the "Truth."

Special Agent Doctor Dana Scully was brought in to be an unwitting spy in his office, being told only she was to "report" on his actions. He knew he had to use an innocent, since Mulder could have ferreted out a plant in a few weeks. But, all had not developed according to his plan. Instead, the agents had bonded in the first two years of their partnership, even roping in Walter Skinner. The old man shook his head, lit a new cigarette, then sat again.

But, it had all collapsed. Mulder's paranoia and weakness for women (silly man, leaving those tapes in his desk), and Scully's stubbornness and grief over her sister (Krycek's error, not a flaw in "his" plan), had wedged the partners apart. It was time to eliminate Bill Mulder's boy as a player in the game. For his old friend's sake, he would not terminate the young man, but would discredit his voice, letting his various vices reduce him to insignificance. Dana Scully would still be useful, not as an actor, but as a subject.

He coughed, almost in reflex, then turned to his desk. Tapping a small switch illuminated the thick folder with a faint glow. The plan that was forming in his mind would solve the problem developing with the son of yet another friend from the old days. Antonio D'Amato had been of boundless assistance at the end of the war. After all these years, he could still hear that accented English. "Mussolini is a pig! He wants to ruin the homeland for his boundless ambition! He makes all Italians into cardboard villains!"

But Tony had more going for him than hatred of Il Duce. He had connections on both sides of the Atlantic, attachments both legal and illegal. While Tony had been ashamed of the less than honest way his father had begun the family's fortune, he had not hesitated to exploit every avenue available when the time had come to liberate certain materials and expertise from the Axis countries. "America is a wonderful country. A man who is nothing, less than dirt, can come here and make a new life for himself and his family. Anything I can do to help my new home will be a pleasure."

The old man smiled, genuinely this time. The memory of the face behind the voice recalled good times, long gone. As the expression faded, he congratulated himself on his cleverness. The Mafia connection had been all that was necessary to shield the Committee's actions from prying eyes. J. Edgar and the Mob had an understanding. They didn't expose his Vice, so he wouldn't explore theirs.

The old man responded in thought to the voice in his head._ Well, Tony,_ y_ou should be proud of your boy. He turned out well. Good family, good businessman. So squeaky clean he could qualify for sainthood. He patronized the arts, just like the famous Tuscan for whom you had named him._ But, Guiliano had not been content with that. He had been using his family's money to fight the War on Drugs, mostly working with the government. Only, when the wheels of bureaucracy ground too slowly for his taste, he took matters into his own hands. After his father's recent death, the old man suspected Guiliano had learned about a past that he should never have known existed. _Just like Special Agent Fox Mulder._ Yes, it would be interesting to set up the game, then watch the players as they made their moves.

-o-0-o-

J. Edgar Hoover Building  
Tuesday February 6, 1996  
7:00 am

Shivering as she crossed from the door to her desk, Dana Scully sensed just how cold the room had become overnight. The heat had failed in the huge office building yesterday afternoon, but with the Budget nightmare, repairs had been delayed until August, probably. As was typical with the Washington area, a huge mass of Arctic air had moved in during the night, dropping temperatures into the 20's, with forecasts of snow/ sleet/ freezing rain later in the week. The temperature in the basement office she shared with Mulder hovered in the low fifties. Only it was, for once, warmer than the upper portions of the building, since the ground provided some insulation. She hit the power button on the side of her computer monitor, then walked around to pull out her chair before she sat. A yellow post-it note was stuck to the seat. _Oh, no. It's come to this._ She lifted off the paper, then scanned the familiar handwriting.

Scully,

Took another shot at the report on the Comity case after you left. I'll be in late this morning. My mother called me last night. She wants me to meet with some lawyer in Rosslyn about my father's estate. Appointment's at 10:00 am. What a life, right? Don't freeze your fingers off before I get back.

Mulder

P.S. The report is on my machine, under c:\wp\reports\unfinished\

Scully sighed. _Well, at least his sense of humor was coming back._ He had tried to use a word processor, but until she looked at it, she wouldn't know how bad the report was. Given her partner's recent moods, she would have to tread very carefully with the text itself. She crossed the room to Mulder's desk, noticing that he had left his machine on. _All night! I keep warning him about that._ She downloaded the file to a three-and-a-half-inch floppy, then turned the computer off before returning to her own desk.

The week since returning from New Hampshire had been uncomfortably quiet for them both. The partnership she thought had been the one solid thing she could count on through all the insanity she had seen these past four years was foundering. Neither of them had a clue as to how to resolve their differences. They had different views on nearly every case they had worked on, but they had always respected each other's opinions. They had different approaches to nearly every problem, but they had, until now, always managed to turn these weaknesses into strengths.

As she accessed the file to bring it into the word processor, she noted the time: 6:37 am. _Mulder, what are you doing to yourself? Hope the lawyer in Rosslyn doesn't want to grill you on some 1955 tax return, or I'll be bailing your butt out of jail._

She usually came in around eight when they were in DC, but today she had come in early to finish up some autopsy reports for the Violent Crimes Section. As best the guys in VC could tell, these were more drug-related killings; however, they were not gang-related. The VC section was baffled about the connections between the victims. These dead dealers had been several steps up and down on the distribution hierarchy, but there were no obvious links between any of them. _Even though they were scum personified, justice should be done. I don't want justice. I want some answers._ Scully frowned. Why had that thought occurred to her just then? _Oh well, Mulder, let's see what you've written now._ She clicked on the OK button, then began to read.

-o-0-o-

J. Edgar Hoover Building  
Tuesday, 11:00 am

Fox Mulder reached for the elevator button, punching the worn letter D repeatedly. _It won't get here any sooner if you do that, Mulder._ He smiled, thinking the words in Dana Scully's voice. _Yeah, Scully, but by the time I'm done punching, the elevator is usually here, so it gives the *perception* of making the elevator speed up._ Sure enough, the doors opened, so Mulder entered, slapping the B button at the bottom of the panel as soon as he was inside. _Why,_ he wondered as he leaned against the wall, _do I only seem to have pleasant conversations with my partner in my head recently?_

Hearing the doors of the elevator roll apart, Scully looked up from the screen to the entrance to their shared office. As Mulder passed through, she noted the slouch in his shoulders, the deep circles under his eyes. _How long had he not been sleeping?_ The answer came almost immediately. _Most of his adult life._

She found herself inhaling quickly. "Mulder?"

He barely glanced in her direction. "Hum, Scully?"

"How did it go at the lawyers today?"

Squaring his shoulders as he crossed to his desk, he sat, heavily. "Oh, okay. There was some question about the title of the house in Chilmark. The land it sits on belonged to the local Episcopal Church back about 200 years ago. It was sold for a farm around the time of the Civil War, then re-sold to the family who built the present house around 50 years later. However, the original transfer was lost in the courthouse fire of 1919, and the Church wanted to follow up on a copy of the title in their records. Since it was all legalese, I tuned out about 10 minutes after the meeting started."

Scully shook her head sympathetically. "I know how you feel. When we went through my father's will, it took several months to determine who actually controlled a small inheritance left to him by his grandmother."

Mulder examined his partner for the first time since entering the room. _That wasn't too bad. Now the hard part._ "Scully, have you read my report on the Comity case yet?" He was surprised that his partner's face lightened. _Perhaps this day would turn out to be better than I thought it would._

Scully turned up one corner of her mouth slightly while handing a copy to him. "If I didn't know better, I would have thought you had had it ghost written. Not only was it not skewed into 60 different fonts with variable margins and formats, but I think I can go along with most of what you wrote."

Mulder paused, then reached to take the papers from her. _She almost smiled._ He watched her shiver as she settled back into the chair. "The heat's still off?" He frowned, not yet fully aware of the inside temperature. "Well, if it stays this cold for too much longer, I'll talk to Skinner about letting us work somewhere else."

Scully lifted that up-curved corner of her mouth. "You mean out of our famous Basement Office? Exposing the X-Files to the light of day? Such Extreme Possibilities, Mulder." Since her wool pantsuit only kept out so much of the cold, she slipped back into the coat she had earlier draped over the chair.

A brief exhalation, then the tall agent propped his feet on his desk as he began to read.

Scully turned to her keyboard to open one of the autopsy reports she had come in finish.

Silence settled over the room, disturbed only by soft clicks as Scully's hands moved over the keys, or an occasional swish as Mulder turned pages in the report.

-o-0-o-

Basement  
J. Edgar Hoover Building  
Tuesday, 3:30 pm

Scully leaned back from the keyboard, having sent the last of her reports to the VC Section across the internal FBI net.

When the network lines had been installed in the building, Mulder had insisted one of their computers stay off-line. "Trust No One. Remember, Scully, if you can get out, *they* can get in." His Macintosh had remained isolated from the rest of the building, another relict piece of flotsam on his desk.

She looked over at her partner. He had shifted in his seat to scribble on the paper in the report. Focusing on his face, she was relieved to see that he wasn't frowning at what she had changed. One of her early drafts had him storming out of the room, not to return until the following morning. Inhaling deeply, he dropped his feet to the floor, but, as he began to speak to her, the phone rang.

She quickly reached for it. "Scully."

Mulder watched her frown as she listened to the caller.

She responded to the message with a nod. "Okay, I'll pass that along to Agent Mulder. Thank you, Sir."

Mulder caught a slight flush to her cheeks. _Must be Skinner._

As she replaced the hand piece, she turned to her partner. "We've officially been relieved for the day. It seems the FBI is forced, by some government regulation, to send us all home if the building drops to the sub-Arctic temperatures we poor helpless agents-" She emphasized her disgust with a quick roll of her eyes. "-have somehow endured for the past day or so. Skinner also says it'll be two days before the repair crew can be paid to work on the HVAC. Since they are contract support, they've all gone home already. Politics!"

Mulder nodded, picked up the report, then stood. "I'd like to speak with you about your changes, if I could. Would you like to stop for a late lunch on your way home, or could we talk at my place, or yours, or whatever?" He winced as he spoke 'whatever.'

_Why is he being so polite?_ The answer to her question appeared, unbidden and unwanted. _He's afraid you'll start chewing his head off again._ She decided to meet his graciousness with some gentle humor, since *not* yelling at each other was beginning to feel good. "Your place? I know, you just want me to study those alien life forms in your vegetable bin." She lifted her eyebrows and grinned, almost fully smiling at him, to try to keep him at ease.

He smirked back. "Nope, they've been banished. Last time the guys came over, Byers took one sniff of my bathroom and left. Said they wouldn't come back until I majorly sterilized the joint. I got desperate. I hired a cleaning service. Did you know that my bedroom carpet is actually green, not grey?"

Scully didn't know whether to laugh or groan. _If his bathroom was so bad it had gotten to the three confirmed bachelors who were the Lone Gunmen, I'm *really* glad I haven't been by recently._ "Sure. Your place is fine, just let me assemble some notes, first. If we are going to be out of the office for at least two days, maybe we can finish the rest of this paperwork." She opened her briefcase to begin organizing files and disks.

"Ugh. Paperwork." Mulder paused for a moment, then turned to his desk to collect some folders himself.

-o-0-o-

Theodore Roosevelt Bridge  
Arlington, VA  
Tuesday, 4:00 pm

Mulder glanced in his rear view mirror to look for Scully's car. _Mulder, what have you gotten yourself into now? Do you think you can spend an entire day with Dana Scully without arguing about something until one of you storms out of the room?_ Shaking his head, he reminisced as he attempted to determine how their partnership had stumbled so badly.

He had returned from New Mexico, full of determination to uncover the Truth about the Thinker's tape, his father's murder, and Melissa Scully's subsequent death. Scully had said she wanted answers for her sister, but she seemed so focused on the X-Files she had allowed herself no time to grieve. She had to deal with it, somehow, and with the guilt she seemed to feel every day. _Survivor's guilt._ Now, *that* was something with which he was very familiar. He had lost Sam, then his father, and effectively his mother as well. He didn't want to lose Dana Scully.

He glanced behind him again, finally spotting her auburn hair back about two cars and over a lane. He had time to look since DC rush hour traffic had snarled, leaving long lines of tired commuters idling in a packed mass. There was an accident on I-66 up ahead, or so WMAL had reported. He had punched off the radio long ago during another report on the mess in Bosnia. He didn't want to deal with listening to it.

_Is that my problem, I'm so used to torturing myself I can't deal with anyone's pain but my own? Am I running away from my partner just when she needs someone to listen to her but doesn't know how to ask? Isn't that what she was really saying to me when we fought over Kevin Kryder?_ He crossed his arms over the steering wheel to slump his head down for a second.

-o-0-o-

Dana Scully scanned the crawling traffic. Somehow she had pulled even with him so she had a good view of that familiar "tortured Mulder" look. _How could he get so wrapped up in himself, so quickly? If he looks over here, I'll try to smile._ She snorted. _Why am I always supposed to be the one with the cool head? Why can't I depend on him for once?_ She needed to talk to her partner and closest friend about her problems, but it was tough when he was part of the problem.

_Deal with it, Dana. You have to deal with it. Don't be selfish. How would you feel if you had been drugged, gone to find your father dying of a gunshot wound, and had nearly died yourself in a burning boxcar? You wouldn't have much emotional resilience to help someone else right about then, now would you? You'd run away to try to find someone else to lean on, too._ A sharp blap interrupted her reverie. The traffic had cleared out in front of her, leaving an angry line of people behind her Honda. She accelerated to the exit.

-o-0-o-

Apartment 42  
Arlington, VA  
Tuesday, 5:45 pm

Special Agents Mulder and Scully stood in the living room of his apartment, juggling briefcases, laptop computers, and carry-out Chinese food.

Mulder crinkled his nose at his diminutive partner. "Eew, Scully, Tofu. How can you eat that stuff?"

As she bent to place the notes and computer on his coffee table, she lifted an eyebrow at him. _He's right. The fishtank is cleaner than I ever remember it. The place even smells good._ "Recent research has indicated that soybeans contain significant quantities of cancer-fighting anti-oxidants, Mulder."

He stopped walking toward the kitchen. _Cancer. All those women abductees with cancer._ He didn't want to deal with that either. _Well, Fox William Mulder, grow up. She needs somebody to support her._ "But you're okay, aren't you? Your last Bureau physical..."

She looked up, surprised to find him standing over her, worried. "Yes, I am. But with all the things that have happened lately, I feel like being careful. Even if I hadn't found out about those MUFON women, I still have a family history to be worried about. Breast cancer took my grandmother at fifty-six." _Don't worry! Don't start brooding!_ She lifted both eyebrows now. _Don't snap at him. Try to keep things light._ "I have to see this miracle in your bathroom. The facilities at work were colder than, well, you know what."

It worked. His dark mood lifted. "Okay. I'll get the food set out. See you in a bit."

-o-0-o-

Dinner had helped. The ease with which their day had begun continued into the evening. One of the cable stations showed Star Trek at six, so by mutual agreement, they had settled back for a break before beginning work, only to discover the episode was "Spock's Brain."

"Eeewww!" They had chorused at the teaser when they both realized what they were in for.

Mulder turned to his partner. "Care for some fun at Gene Roddenberry's expense?"

She cocked her head. "Sure, is it MSTie time?"

Sully assumed the role of Tom Servo and Mulder became Crow T. Robot. They joked, did their best (or worst) William Shatner impersonations, and threw silly song lyrics back and forth during the commercials. They had begun watching the show sitting at either end of the futon, but by the end, were shoulder to shoulder, laughing.

As the Enterprise warped off the screen under the final credits, Scully tapped the mute button on the remote. "Mulder, I need to speak with you about what happened at Comity last week."

He turned to her. _This is payback, G-man. Deal with it._

She arched both eyebrows. "I'm sorry I was such a, well, a bitch, while we were there. You've been through so much in the past few months." She shifted on the futon, suddenly, pulling her knees up to her chin to wrap her arms around them. "We've both lost people we love deeply, and I haven't always been there for you, or I've tried to hang on to you too hard at the wrong time."

Mulder's face softened as she spoke. "Scully, I..."

Her face set. "No, Mulder, please let me finish."

Mulder's eyes narrowed. _She's angry._ He braced himself. _No, not angry. She's forcing herself not to cry in front of you._ He realized, then, how far they had fallen away from each other. She had trusted him to support her when she had been overwhelmed by her experiences with Phaster, captive as she had been of the inhuman horrors of a serial killer. Not caring that she wept in his arms in the middle of a criminal investigation, she had granted herself a moment of release, so unlike her usual behavior, but so essential after her torment. Here, in the relative seclusion of his apartment, after all they had been through together, she was denying her grief once more, keeping a crushing grip on emotions she desperately needed to confront to heal. _Or was that what she was preparing to do now?_

Scully clenched her fists. "I want our partnership to work, Mulder. I *need* our partnership to work. I need to look the bastards in the eye that killed Mel, and your father, and kidnapped Sam, as the secrets they have tried to keep hidden all these years finally come out. I need for there to be final, incontrovertible proof that we have the Truth. I want to see you there, too, not go visit your lonely grave for the rest of my life. I may not see everything the way you see it, or believe all the things you believe, but I want to get to the Truth, just as much as you do. Can you understand that? Can you?" Her eyes, that were somehow both green and blue, locked with his hazel ones, hers blazing her determination to connect.

He stood to walk to the window. He thought back over the time of her abduction, how his own emotions ruled him, how he had sought to lay all his fears aside when she had been returned. But they had built up inside of him, little cracks appearing after the case with Sammon Roque in Florida, until their encounter with Lucy Householder. His feelings for that lost woman had set his fears overflowing, raging out of control, venting at the only target available, his partner. He bit his lower lip. _It's not right to do that to her, you know that. She has her own pain._

She watched him, her body shaking with the intensity of her emotions. _Say something, Mulder, *anything*. *Say* *anything*. Yell, cry, call me stupid, short, ugly, fat, *anything.* I've poured my heart out to you, so don't turn off to me now!_

He rested his head on the window for a moment, then turned, crossed the space to where she was sitting, knelt beside her, and wrapped her face in his hands. "Dana, I'm sorry too. I need to lean on you, to bounce my ideas off you, to know that you are there to cover my back when all hell breaks loose, but I haven't been fair to you. You needed someone these past few months, and I haven't been there. Please, I want to start over. Deal?" He looked at her like a lost child.

The tears she had tried to stop slid down one cheek, then the other. She slipped to the edge of the sofa to encircle his head tightly with her arms. "Deal, Agent Mulder."

He pulled her into a gentle embrace, rocking her pliant torso back and forth. _When has she lost so much weight?_ He rubbed her back, not particularly wanting to release her just yet. _When you weren't watching out for your partner, that's when._

Neither of them heard the heavy footsteps approach the door, but they both heard the crack it made as it split in two.

-o-0-o-

"Well, what the fuck have we here?" The question came from one of the biggest men either of them had ever had the misfortune to encounter.

Dana Scully stood quickly, wondering if she had time to reach for her briefcase and gun tucked beside the futon.

Mulder positioned himself between Scully and the intruder, then he gasped as the giant stepped forward, and five other men, equally large, lined up to either side of him. _Had the bounty hunter returned, with clones, or was this some new menace to haunt my nightmares?_

"Think we have the right place, Joe?" The speaker appeared to be Hispanic, dark curly hair, with olive skin.

"Looks like what the boss said to expect. Tall, skinny guy, and this must be that short, red-haired bimbo of his." The behemoth speaking was blond, with a crew cut, wearing a skin-tight muscle shirt. The giant to his left looked enough like "Joe" to be his twin.

The two agents grimaced, then Mulder spoke, forcefully. "We're Federal Agents. I'm Mulder and this is Scully. What is the meaning of this?"

The six men snickered among themselves.

Scully, now standing beside Mulder, glanced at her partner, who looked down at her with an 'I have no idea what's happening here, but be ready' expression on his face.

The one called 'Joe' replied, "Yeah, yeah, right. And I'm one of the Hoggettes. We *know* who the hell you are, *Agent* Mulder, and we've come to deliver a warning."

The six men swarmed across the room, three grabbing Mulder, two restraining Scully.

She quickly sized up their attackers. No guns, or if they had guns, with all the tight clothing and rippling muscles, she didn't particularly want to think about where they were hiding them. _Go for the knees, Dana. Even the biggest have weaknesses._ She twisted out of the grasp of the man on her left, then struck out at her other captor.

Mulder, now slammed against the wall on the far side of the room, attempted to break free as well.

_Think Dana, next move._ She heard a slight choking sound as she tried to go for her briefcase. _Good, Mulder is free and he's got one of them down._

"Well, little Miss *Agent* bimbo, I'd stop right there if I were you, before we wring your sugar daddy's neck."

Scully froze, then turned to face Joe.

The giant towered over her, returning her glare. "Like I started to say, we came to deliver a fucking warning. Also to pick up some *goods*. The primo stuff you sell will be burned to keep it out of the wrong hands, but we'll leave enough behind so the police can throw your little dealing asses in jail, *if* there's any shit left to clean up."

Scully's arms were grabbed, again, the two men holding her, more firmly and further away from their bodies, than before.

"Special Agents." Joe shook his head. "What the fuck will they think of next." He turned to Mulder, who was lifted off the ground. "This is your warning, you Yuppie punk."

Scully struggled, but could only watch in horror as Mulder was pummeled, over and over, in the face and stomach, by Joe and his twin, until he was released to crumple to the floor, moaning incoherently.

She was shouting in her frustration. "We're Federal Agents! Why are you doing this? Who do you think we are?"

Finished with Mulder, Joe, fully focused, turned his attention to her. "Look bitch, stop playing games with me. We *know* who you are, and how you earn your keep. If the Mr. Yuppie there is too damaged for you, maybe you should try out a real man. One who doesn't deal in death. The only thing we want to hear is where the crap is stashed."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Scully drew herself up to her full height, barely reaching Joe's chest. "We are Federal Agents, not drug dealers or gangsters, or whoever you think we are."

"Hey Joe, come look at this!" One of the men who had restrained the now unconscious Mulder emerged from his bedroom, holding out a pair of fur-trimmed handcuffs. "Think she'll stick to the *agent* story now?"

Scully rolled her eyes. _Oh, Mulder, what have you gotten us into!_

One of the others plucked a video out of Mulder's special collection. "Sex Princesses from Beyond the Galaxy." As he read out the title, the six thugs laughed, passing the tapes around, glancing meaningfully at Scully.

Joe chortled, then grew serious. "Well, since she likes to play Special fucking Agent so much, use those to cuff her to the damn radiator. We have work to do." The two men holding her arms lifted her off the ground, removing any leverage she might use against them. "Reno, stay here and watch these two. If pretty boy over there begins to wake up, use a little persuasion to help him sleep again, okay?"

Reno tossed his head of long black hair before he settled on the futon. "I don't understand you, Lady. Drugs are used to exploit women for sex daily in the streets of our cities, but here you are, living with a dealer. My mother's people are Cheyenne. Once I heard the stories of how rot-gut whiskey and gin were used to addict and corrupt my ancestors, and I saw how drugs continue to ruin young people on Reservations today, I vowed I would do everything in my power to stop those who deal in human misery."

"Reno!" Joe's voice boomed from the bedroom. "No talking!"

Scully heard the dresser drawers creaking as they were pulled out and the contents dumped on the floor. Thump. Thump, bang, thump, thump. _Those must be Mulder's shoes._

"Bingo!" That was a new voice. "Found it, Joe." Plastic rustled. Joe reappeared in the doorway, holding a large Ziploc bag filled with a white powder.

Scully frowned. _What on earth is going on here? This must be a plant. Surely they see that._

Reno shot her a look of pure hatred. "Want to talk to us now, babe? Give us names, dates, drop locations."

She sighed. "I told you. We're Federal Agents. I don't know how that *stuff* got in Mulder's bedroom, but he didn't put it there. I didn't put it there. Agent Mulder and I are partners with the FBI. If you really think I'm lying, then look in the briefcase by the sofa. I have FBI files in there. My badge is in there. My gun, with an FBI serial number on it, is in there. If you go get Mulder's briefcase from the hall, you'll find more files, his badge, and his gun as well. The computer on the coffee table has a government property number on it. If you boot it up, you can read our case files to your heart's content."

One of the thugs lifted the laptop off the coffee table to turn it over. "Hey, Joe, she's right. There *is* a fucking government sticker on the bottom."

Scully sagged to the floor. _Maybe I can convince these men I'm not their enemy. Then maybe I can reach Mulder to see how badly he was hurt._

Reno opened Scully's briefcase, saw the badge and gun, and blanched. "Joe, there are FBI files here. I think some shit is setting us up." He studied the top folder. "This autopsy report was filed by the examining pathologist, Dr. D. Scully."

Joe frowned. "Who's D. Scully?"

Reno held up the badge as he pointed. "Her."

Joe took the folder Reno then held out for him. Scanning the pages, he turned to Scully. "Why do you have a report on Jamal Johnson's autopsy? He's one of the bigger dealers in this area."

The other men in the room exchanged worried glances.

Scully sighed. _Why don't these guys catch on?_ "I performed the autopsy last week. It's not the sort of case I usually investigate, but the guy had been in the water for two days before he was found. I've seen some really strange stuff over the past two years in my regular work. _Great, Dana, like the X-Files are in any way regular._ So, I agreed to help the VC."

Joe spoke quietly to the other crew-cut blonde man and the one with black curly hair. "John, start examining the data on her computer. Alex, get Mr. GQ's briefcase. I don't like how this looks."

Reno knelt beside Scully to unlock the handcuffs. "If you are who you say you are, I'm sorry, Agent Scully. I signed up to stop crimes, not beat up Feds."

Nodding, Scully began crossing the room to Mulder, rubbing her wrist as she walked. _Mulder, we need to have a serious talk about your extracurricular activities._

Joe snorted. "Hold it, doll-face. Reno, I didn't tell you to let her go. This might all be a trick. Alonzo, hold her." The African-American moved over to take Scully's recently unbound wrist then twisted it, hard, behind her back.

Scully gritted her teeth. _And I almost got to Mulder's other gun._ Worried, she looked down at her partner. _Mulder, why won't you wake up? Is this the one-blow-too-many to that thick skull of yours?_

Alex looked up from the files in Mulder's briefcase. "Joe, I don't the hell understand this at all. She has autopsy reports on several dead drug dealers, but he has reports on alien abductions, psychics, kids who control lightning, mental transference, cosmic alignments, and, oh man! Sentient metallic cockroaches?"

John nodded. "Same here, Joe. She has autopsies on file, but reports on all those other things too."

Scowling, Joe stepped up to Scully, lifting her chin roughly. "Okay. Spill. What is all this stuff?"

She jerked her head away from his fingers. "I work in the X-Files Section with Agent Mulder. We investigate cases that seem to fall beyond the realm of normal experience. I know most of what you see there looks unbelievable, but it all happened, or more precisely, appeared to have happened." _Good thing Mulder is out. I'd never live that last statement down._

"On the taxpayer's dime? No, bitch, I don't believe you. The autopsies, well those are real enough. But, this other stuff. It sounds like drug-induced hallucinations to me. In fact, what this looks like is an elaborate scheme to infiltrate the FBI to monitor their War on Drugs. Those, those X-Files are red herrings to give you deniability if caught. So, as I see it, we're back where we started."

He pulled himself up to his full height. "I want names, dates, and contacts."

Scully shook her head.

"No? Well, we still haven't finished our search. Reno, cuff her again. No talking, and this time I *mean* *it*, gaddammit."

The five men fanned out, opening cabinets, drawers, and closets, spilling their contents onto the floor.

Scully winced. _He'll have to pay the cleaning service extra next week._

They overturned furniture, ripping open upholstery, pulling out the padding.

As one point, Scully heard the springs on the bed creak, a long tearing sound, then a slosh of water. _Oh, well. So much for the clean carpet. It's not like he used it, much._

Finally, the last of the dishes were pulled down, the destruction stopped. The five men returned.

Joe stood over Scully, furious. "Look, I've been a fair as I can be to a tripped-out bitch like you. You really had us going there with that FBI story for a while, but this is all I can take."

Her eyes widened as she steeled herself for what was coming. Alex and Alonzo picked her up as Reno undid the cuffs. The first punch to her chin caught her by surprise, but she resolved not to cry out. As the rest of the blows struck her body, she mentally took herself far away from the room, from this situation. _You have to stay alive. You have to get through this. You *can* get through this._

-o-0-o-

The first thing Mulder felt was the pain. Pain in his jaw, pain in his gut, but the worst was the pain in his left side. _Ribs._ He thought. _Not again._ Then he heard a thump, followed by a soft grunt. Then another, and another. He opened his eyes, squinting against the light. Five men were standing in a circle, striking something, over and over. _Scully, where are you? Oh, no, not you too._ He swallowed. _My gun. Get my gun._ He slid his hand down his leg, trying not to make a sound.

"Reaching for this?"

Mulder felt a sharp pain in his calf. _No, not my leg._

Reno lifted the small revolver out of the ankle holster. "Don't think you'll be needing that for a few years, Mr. X-File."

The thumping stopped.

"Mr. GQ is back?"

Mulder watched Scully slide to the ground as the circle opened, the group moving towards him. _Who are these guys?_ He blinked, pushing himself into a sitting position.

The one called Joe crouched over him. "Well, the *Doctor* over there couldn't tell us anything useful. Maybe you can. And don't start babbling about aliens and metallic cockroaches, asshole."

"What do you know about the X-Files?" Mulder's voice cracked. _Yeah, G-Man, you've got'em on the ropes now._

Joe pulled him to his feet. "You mean your little cover-up? Lame try. We want to know who your bosses are. We want to shut your end of the operation down. Talk! Dammit!" Joe shook Mulder.

Mulder grimaced. "We're Federal Agents. If you don't believe us, call the FBI and verify our identities. Call our AD."

Joe frowned, letting Mulder sag back against the wall. "Just who the hell is your AD?"

"Walter Skinner."

Now all the men became agitated.

"Wrong! We know about him. I'm fucking tired of this." Joe turned to the others. "If we didn't have explicit orders, I'd terminate both of these assholes with their stolen FBI guns."

The men around the room nodded.

Joe picked Mulder up by the shoulders, pulling him up nose to nose. "We have a kilo of Coke we found in your bedroom. We have stolen FBI property and documents. I'm only going to say this once. Stop dealing. Go to the police and turn yourselves in. Maybe you can work something out so you won't spend the rest of your sorry life in jail. If you won't do it for yourself, do it for her." He jerked his head back over his shoulder towards Scully. "Women on drugs don't live very long, and they look like three-day-old shit, real fast."

Mulder looked over at his partner, but he couldn't tell whether she was still breathing. Joe lowered Mulder's feet to the floor. When his leg buckled under him, he closed his eyes, trying to block out the pain. He felt something land on top of him and a sharp thump on his jaw. His head snapped back against the wall, then he felt nothing more.

-o-0-o-

Dana Scully rested in a dark place. She knew something was terribly wrong with her. A lancing pain brought her back to reality as she was carried across the room by rough hands. She felt herself falling. _Help us._ She thought into the darkness. _Someone please help us._

Out in the darkness, someone heard.

-o-0-o-

Annapolis, MD  
Tuesday, 11:00 pm

Margaret Scully jerked awake to discover her hands were shaking. Something was deeply wrong with one of her children. She slipped out of bed, not turning on the light in her haste to reach the address book she kept in the kitchen. One of her children was falling into a cold darkness. _How do I know that?_ It must be one of the boys. One of my boys has fallen overboard and is drowning in a frozen sea. _This is silly, Margaret. If one of your boys is hurt, you'll get a call. Besides, there is nothing you could do._

_It couldn't be Dana._ Her girl had called her just yesterday, complaining about budget cuts and no heat at work. Dana was safe in her apartment, curled up with her Pomeranian watching late- night TV. If she called, her skeptical pathologist daughter would tell her she was just feeling the after-effects of an especially vivid dream. _Call Dana._ Her feeling of dread centered around her younger, now only, her baby girl. It would be worth a good teasing to know she was okay.

She dialed her answering machine. Four rings, before she heard, "You have reached the residence of ..." Margaret killed the call, then dialed the cellular phone number. _Please pick up, Honey._ The phone rang, it was answered, and she heard, "The number you have reached is not in service." _No! I dialed it right._ A repeat call met with the same response. She hung up.

_Now what?_ She would try Fox. She heard her daughter say, "Call him Mulder, Mom." He would understand. He would tell her that yes, Dana had changed the cell phone number, that yes, she was okay. She flipped the pages to M, dialed the answering machine. The phone rang, ten, twenty times, but no answer. His cell phone was out of service, too.

Now she was really worried. She paced the kitchen floor, cordless phone in hand. Dana would have told her if she were out of town on a case, in fact, most of the time she kept her dog for her. There was no one else to turn to. Wait, yes, Dana's boss, Walter Skinner, who had helped her keep in touch with Dana when Mel was in the hospital. _Listen to yourself, Margaret. Are you really thinking of calling a man you barely know in the middle of the night because of a dream?_

She replaced the receiver, then poured herself a glass of chilled water. She took a few deep breaths, drinking slowly. The feeling of dread was not receding, even though the image of falling was. _Call Skinner._ She rehearsed several statements in her head before she picked up the phone, flipped the pages to S, then punched in the number.

Two rings, then the call was answered. "Skinner."

Margaret let out the breath she had been holding. _So loudly? Now he'll think this is an obscene call._ "Mr. Skinner, this is Margaret Scully, Dana Scully's mother."

"Yes, Ma'am. How may I help you?"

"I've been trying to call Dana and I can't seem to reach either her or Fox. Are they out of town?" _That sounded reasonably sane._

"No, Ma'am, they aren't. They should both be at home. Have you tried their cell phone numbers?"

"Yes, I get messages that both phones are out of service. Fox's answering machine doesn't pick up either." She paused, uncertain now.

"Well, Ma'am, let me try to reach them. I haven't spoken to either of them since I sent them home this afternoon. Given Agent Mulder's habits, I'm glad you called. I'll inform you as soon as I know anything." Click.

Margaret hung up the phone. _Wait, he had said. Wait._ As a Navy wife, she had years of practice waiting.

-o-0-o-

Apartment 5  
Alexandria, VA  
Tuesday, 11:30 pm

The keys clattered to the floor. An old man in his undershirt and trousers bent down, but the bald one who had introduced himself as Walter Skinner was quicker. They had both pounded on the oak until the Pomeranian could have developed back spasms from all his scratching and barking at the other side in response. As the door swung open, a red ball of fur shot out into the hall to streak to the entrance of the apartment building.

"Looks like he hasn't been outside all day." The landlord trotted after him. "I'll see he gets some water and care. Doctor Scully adores him."

Skinner nodded as he entered the living room, then quickly scanned the kitchen and bedroom. All three were neat, tastefully decorated, and, from the full kitchen trash can, he knew they had not been prepared for a planned absence by their occupant.

On the way out, he saw the red light blinking on the answering machine. The message was just silence, then the call disconnected. _Margaret Scully._ Lifting his cell phone out of his jacket, he dialed both of Mulder's numbers, with no response. There was something wrong, he knew that now. _What crazy lead have you dragged your partner off on?_

He looked up at Dana Scully's apartment building one last time before he climbed into his car to drive away. He could see a short, fuzzy tail waving happily as the landlord carried the dog back through the entrance. _One errant child saved._ He hoped it would be as easy with the other two, but somehow he was afraid not.

-o-0-o-

Outside Apartment 42  
Arlington, VA  
Tuesday 11:55 pm

Walter Skinner began running. As soon the elevator doors had opened, he could see two pieces of thick oak, one lying in the hallway, one hanging crazily off the bottom hinge. _Agent Mulder, if you've injured yourself and your partner on some new monster hunt, I'll boot your posterior to Seattle and back, before assigning you permanently to Tour Guide Detail._ He grabbed the door frame to spin himself into Mulder's front room.

The place looked like a cyclone had hit it. Passing into the living room, something crunched under his left foot. _Ah, the cell phone. Not Mulder's, Scully's._ Then he saw them both, crumpled into a heap to the right of the doorway. _911\. Now._ Having witnessed it often enough in Vietnam, he knew that neither was dead, but both looked badly injured.

As Skinner approached while relaying his location to the dispatcher, Dana Scully's head lifted off the floor. "Sir? Is that you?"

Kneeling, Skinner gently grasped her shoulder. "Agent Scully, can you tell me what happened here?"

She frowned, framing her answer carefully, as she always did in his presence. "I'm not sure, Sir. Agent Mulder and I were working on the files we brought here when we were attacked. They appeared to be anti-drug vigilantes. They kept lecturing us on the evils we were doing, telling us to turn ourselves in. They seemed to think you were involved, too." She swallowed, then grimaced as she sat up. "Why are you here, Sir?"

"Your mother called me. She had been trying to reach you, but your phones were dead."

Scully turned to check her partner, who had lifted an hand to rub his jaw, but kept both eyes firmly closed.

Skinner addressed him more sharply in an attempt to keep him focused on the here and now. "Agent Mulder!"

"Yes, Sir?" One hazel eye fixed on his AD's face, then sought out his partner. "Scully, what did they do to you?" He pulled himself up until he was sitting with his back to the wall, then curled his arm around her shoulders.

She had turned deathly pale, wrapping both arms around her stomach. "This feels wrong. This shouldn't be happening to me." Scully slumped against the arm behind her. "I shouldn't be bleeding like this."

The two men locked eyes over her head.

Fox Mulder was seeing one of his worst nightmares played out before him.

Walter Skinner, too, was recalling a time and feelings he thought were long gone. _Where are those chop-, the sirens, where are the ambulances?_ He brought himself up short. He could hear a keening wail in the distance. "I'll go outside to guide them in, Agent Mulder. Keep her still." Skinner was out the door, opting for the stairs. The light over the elevator shone out of the L and he wanted to keep it there.

-o-0-o-

Arlington Hospital  
Wednesday February 7, 1996  
1:30 am

Margaret Scully stepped into the Waiting Room outside of Emergency Surgery. _Ah, the bald head. It must be him._ She walked toward the benches by the window. "Mr. Skinner?"

He rose from the seat, then turned back to meet her in the center of the room. "Agent Scully is still in there, I'm afraid. The last nurse I talked to said they were trying to find the source of the internal bleeding." As Margaret breathed in sharply, the Assistant Director took off his glasses to rub his eyes. "I'm sorry, Ma'am. Let me start at the beginning of what I know. Agents Scully and Mulder were assaulted by a group of vigilantes earlier this evening. I'm not sure why, outside of mistaken identity, but they were both badly beaten."

While walking over to a chair along the wall closest to the surgery doors, she nodded. "Please, call me Margaret. Ma'am makes me feel like your den mother."

"Thank you. Call me Walter, then. I'm not everyone's AD."

"How is Fox?"

Given the gravity of the situation, Skinner clenched his jaw to keep from smiling. _Is she the only one I know who calls him that and lives?_ "Concussion, four broken left ribs, broken left tibia. Lots of soft tissue damage. He'll live, but he won't be jogging for a while."

"You said Dana was still in surgery?"

"Yes. Two broken right ribs. She was bleeding internally in the lower abdomen. I don't know more than that. Please, sit down. Can I get you something while we wait?"

"No, I'm fine. Thank you, though." Margaret sat, then turned as the doors swung open.

While he focused on the older woman's face, a tall, slender doctor in scrubs removed his surgical mask. The unconscious gesture revealed a salt and pepper mustache under wire-rimmed glasses. "Are you Margaret Scully?"

She stood again, fearing the worst. "Yes, I am. How is my daughter?"

"I'm Doctor Anderson. Doctor Scully is in the recovery room. You should be able to see her shortly. Mrs. Scully, to the best of your knowledge, has your daughter ever suffered from endometriosis?"

"No. Why?"

"Well, the cause of the internal bleeding was extreme damage to her uterus. I've never seen anything like it. I know she was only assaulted externally, but the injuries have the appearance of, well..., of some strange botched surgery. There was very little we could do. We removed all the damaged tissue, which was 95% of the organ." He paused, not wanting to say what came next. "Mrs. Scully, I'm sorry, but your daughter will never be able to have children of her own."

Shuddering inside, Margaret thought back to the dark days of Dana's abduction. Ever since her daughter's return, she had been afraid that there would never be an end to the health problems her strange disappearance and prolonged coma had caused.

"Doctor Anderson, will my daughter be all right otherwise?"

"Yes, she should recover from her other injuries as quickly as a woman of her age and in good health would."

"Paging Doctor Anderson. Doctor Anderson to Wing D, please." The nasal voice emanated from the intercom system.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Scully. That's for one of my other patients. The nurse at the recovery room desk will know where your daughter is." He squeezed her hand gently before turning to run to the elevator.

Walter Skinner reappeared by her side. "Recovery is on the third floor, Margaret. Agent Mulder is already in a private room on the fifth." He guided her by a light touch on her elbow to a pair of open doors, but did not enter with her.

"Walter?" She looked over in surprise.

"I'm not one of Agent Mulder's favorite people, so I'll leave him to you. Nor am I family. And only family will be allowed up there this time of night. Tell Agent Scully her landlord is taking care of her dog." He turned.

"Please." She touched his shoulder. "Thank you for everything. I know my daughter is grateful. I'm sure Fox is too, in his own strange way."

Skinner softened his expression into a near-smile for her. _Like mother, like daughter._ The thought appeared as the doors closed. _These Scully women all had nerves of steel and hearts of gold._

-o-0-o-

Arlington Hospital  
Room 521  
Friday, February 9, 1996  
11:20 am

Mulder opened his eyes to a blank institutional wall. He was lying on his right side, and his head rang. _Hospital._ He rubbed his face with both hands, wincing as the muscles cramped over the broken ribs. _I should just rent a room here._

"Fox? How do you feel?" Someone smoothed the hair off his forehead.

"Mom?" He rolled on his back gingerly. "Mrs. Scully, is that you?"

Margaret laughed. "Mom will do just fine, Fox."

"Where's Scully?" He sat up, too quickly, generating more cramps and nausea.

"Right here, sleepyhead." Dana Scully teased from the other bed. "Two days of rest have done wonders for the dark circles under yours eyes, partner."

Mulder looked from daughter to mother.

Both nodded at his unasked question.

Margaret smiled. "Yes, Fox. It has been two days. You really are quite a sleeping beauty when you want to be. How did you make all your exams at Oxford?"

"Oh, that." He grinned. "I just never slept. Middle English is perfectly comprehensible after staring at it for 48 straight hours. I even got visits from old Herr Doktor Sigmund after a week with no sleep."

"Did you meet any good English ghosts that way?" Scully was enjoying herself.

"King Henry the Eighth himself showed me all the best pubs and loveliest ladies. The original Party Animal." He sobered. "How are you, Scully?"

"Well, you have me beaten in the broken bone department, Mulder. The count is two ribs for me; four ribs, a left tibia, and a concussion for you."

He leaned over, trying not to frown at her. "But you were bleeding. You were still in surgery when they brought me up here."

She stared down at her hands for a moment. "The beating exacerbated a pre-existing condition I didn't know I had. My uterus was in shreds, so they had to take it out. It's being tested for cancer, retro-viruses, even for any strange mutations to my DNA. So far, nothing."

The long dark of Scully's abduction replayed itself in Mulder's mind, but he felt a gentle squeeze on his hand, so looked up into Margaret Scully's eyes. He returned the gesture before he responded. "I'm sorry, Scully."

She tossed her red hair, trying to lighten the situation. "It's okay, Mulder. One less thing to worry about should I ever have gentleman friends for visits."

"Dana!" Margaret gave her a look of mock horror.

"Mo-om!" Dana Scully stuck out her tongue.

"I know, dear, you're a grown woman and a doctor, but I'll always be your mother."

Mulder envied the comfort the two women took from each other as he tried to find some part of his body that didn't ache to rest his weight on.

Having seen two active sons and one unstoppable tomboy through their childhoods, Margaret recognized the twisting for what it was. "Fox? Should I have the nurse bring some pain-killers?"

"No, Mrs. Scully. I'll be okay."

"Mulder, don't be Mister Macho Man. Broken bones are allowed to hurt."

His sharp glance silenced Scully briefly as her mother rose to depart.

Mother and daughter exchanged an unspoken question and answer, then Margaret left the room.

He tried a glare. "I don't want to be coddled, Scully."

She stuck her tongue out at him too, which worked, lightening his mood, so he grinned back at her.

Scully shifted on the bed. "Dr. Anderson's orders. If you demand a second opinion, well, after almost four years of working with you, I'm an expert at figuring out when you're covering up something. I asked to be moved in here with you, since, as a doctor, I would *know*, partner. So you'll get them and get better whether you want to or not."

Margaret reentered the room. "Dana, they're gone."

"What?"

"Your uterine samples. NIH just called to ask when they were arriving. They left here yesterday, but were never delivered, apparently. I'm sorry, but the rest of the tissue was incinerated after the samples were taken. Honey, what is going on here? Are we ever going to know if you will be okay?"

Scully hugged herself, chewing her lower lip. "I don't know, Mom. I just don't know."

-o-0-o-

Washington, DC  
Friday, 10:15 pm

A cigarette was stubbed out in the antique ash tray, another lit almost immediately. The old man leaned back in the leather chair, closed the folder, then nodded to himself. All was going as he had foreseen, except that complication with Dana Scully. _Ah, well._ Removing the evidence had been child's play. _Let the woman have a life._ The old chair creaked as he swiveled to face the window overlooking the sleeping city. _Your move, Fox Mulder._

-o-0-o-

End - Sins of the Fathers - Part I Reconciliation and Deconstruction

24


	2. Introduction and Dance

=====o=====================================================o=====

_Sins of the Fathers_ by Mary Ruth Keller

Part II - _Introduction and Dance_

=====o=====================================================o=====

Downtown Manhattan  
New York City, New York  
Wednesday, February 7, 1996  
7:30 am

A soft hum filled the office as indigo and saffron-shaded brocade draperies slid open. Light spilled over an antique Venetian table positioned, as a desk would have been, in front of full height windows. Rich gold and silver threads reflected tiny glints of light out of the backs and seats of intricately carved mahogany chairs on either side of the desk. A Florentine marble table top, polished smooth as glass and resting on gilded legs, glowed in the soft light. Florescent tubes winked, then gently set crystal and rare porcelains sparkling in display cases along the walls.

To the owner of the office, whose entrance had activated the motion of the draperies, these precious items were old friends. His grandfather had acquired them, his father had treasured them, both telling Guiliano, as a child, their history until the boy could recite the stories by heart. All had come from the home country, from Tuscany or Padua or Sicily or any of the places he now told his own three children about, hoping to keep fourth generation ties alive.

However, the business to which this tall, strikingly handsome man in his forties had to attend was neither precious nor lovely. It concerned the future of a young drug lord, Daniel Gordon. As he settled into the tall chair behind the table, Guiliano thought of his father, rising early, working in this same room, struggling to lift the family's fortunes out of the muck into which this Gordon had so willingly sunk.

Guiliano opened the top folder before him, the one containing his latest intelligence on Gordon. Abandoning a career in law enforcement, Gordon had slowly taken control of cocaine distribution to the wealthy and bored in cities from Jacksonville to Bangor. Subtle, too, was his acquisition of power. So subtle that until just last week, Guiliano D'Amato had caught only glimpses of his operation. Sudden appearances in Puerto Rico, Haiti, and last spring, New Mexico. There, it was rumored, he had died.

Guiliano pushed his jet-black hair off his forehead, unconsciously smoothing it over his ears, where a few strands of grey had appeared. _Those were just rumors. His sins had not brought him to his ruin, but instead seem to have propelled him to new heights of infamy._ Gordon reemerged in the District of Columbia that same spring, to criss-cross the country, peddling his wares of death from Miller's Grove, Massachusetts to Seattle. He was even so bold as to fly directly to the Florida State Penitentiary in Leon County. _Visiting a subordinate turned informant, perhaps? All those strange deaths._ Or the Military Hospital in Fort Evanston. _Preying on unfortunates wherever he could find them, without a doubt._

Had Guiliano been aware of this man's talents, he would have removed him earlier, but now, he had changed his mind. _If God gave second chances to my family, so will I to him._ Daniel Gordon had been warned last night, warned to give up his life of crime. Guiliano did not know, personally, the men who had been sent to deliver this message. Only that they agreed with his views on the scourge of drug addiction that threatened his father's beloved America.

Guiliano shifted the folder, revealing rosewood parquet in the tabletop. In one smooth, practiced motion, he lifted the chair off the floor, hearing his father's voice cautioning him about the delicate legs. He rotated on the carpet until he faced the skyscrapers beyond, then settled back to read. Turning pages, he frowned.

Daniel Gordon had insisted, when challenged, that he was still in his old profession. He had asserted, even after having been savagely beaten, that he was another man: Fox. _Was that supposed to be a code?_ Cocaine had been discovered hidden in his bedroom, but his briefcase and computer contained FBI case files and a badge bearing his strange first name. _And what files!_ One, in particular, caught Guiliano's eye. A sharp intake of breath hissed over his teeth as Guiliano mentally connected the case listed with events he had only recently uncovered.

Rising from his seat, he toggled a switch under the table, holding it until the drapes closed. He slipped a key into the lock on, then dialed in the combination of, an antique Mantuan safe to his right. From the safe, he took a frayed notebook, then scanned a list of names typed on a yellowed page. _There_ Mulder. William Mulder. Someone who had worked with his father at the end of the war. This work was so secret his father had revealed the location of these papers to him only as he lay dying last year. Coincidence? He had to be sure.

-o-0-o-

Room 521  
Arlington Hospital  
Saturday, February 10, 1996  
2:15 am

"Sam! No! Sam!"

Hearing her partner's nightmare begin again, Scully awoke. _And you wonder why he doesn't sleep, Dana._ She sighed as she pushed herself up off the hard hospital mattress. Crossing over to the far side of his bed, she reached out to stop him from thrashing. _Four ribs. How can you do this with four broken ribs and a concussion?_ She held his arms carefully down, one against his side, one by his head. _Right, this will make the dream seem real._ Once his breathing slowed, she relaxed her grip. "Sleep, Mulder. We'll find her. I promise." She stroked his hair lightly as her mother had done earlier.

"Sam! Hang on!" His arms snaked out one last time to pull Scully to him. "I got you!"

His strength surprised her, then reminded her, painfully, that Fox Mulder wasn't the only patient in the room. "Mulder, it's okay. It's me, it's okay."

"Scully?" He was waking now. "Oh, no. Are you okay?" He released her, then sat up as she settled on the edge of his bed.

She rubbed her right side, trying to dull the throbbing.

He ducked down to look into her face. "Did I hurt you?" He placed his left hand lightly on her shoulder.

She glanced at him. _What a question._ "No, but let's just say you were on the verge of eliminating your advantage in the broken bone department." Scully stood to walk to the window.

He watched her, her arms crossed, as she looked out over the city. _Something's missing._ Then it hit him. "Scully?"

"Hum?"

"How come you didn't get one of those funny hospital gowns? You can actually walk to the bathroom if you want."

She turned, stepped back toward him, then bent down until they were almost nose to nose. "Doctor's Privileges." The gleam in her eye radiated pure delight at his discomfort, until she grimaced, pushing her hands against her stomach. "Oof. I'd better sit." The pain in her abdomen eased. "No bending or lifting for six weeks. Ugh."

Mulder sympathized. "No jogging for six weeks for me either. Weights. Dull." He frowned. "Scully?"

"Yes?"

"All the time I've been lying here with my back to the door, have I been, well, well..."

She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. "No, Mulder, that's what partners are for, remember?"

He thought back to their conversation in his apartment. _An age ago._ "Thanks, Scully."

"Oh, it wasn't without protest, I can tell you that."

When he realized what she meant, his eyes widened.

_Gotcha!_

"But I thought nurses had seen it all and were professionals?" He had been slowly edging away from the door as the conversation continued.

She patted his shoulder before walking back to her own bed. If she had to look him in the eye now, she might hurt herself laughing. "They *have* seen it all. That's why they're such good judges. Did you think all those numbers on your chart were *really* for tracking heart rate and BP?" _Stop, Dana, stop._ She turned to him once she had settled back in her own bed. _Why do sick people have to sleep on these things?_ "They tried to get to Skinner."

"What? Skinner was here? When?"

"While you were visiting with Good King Henry. I had warned him that those vigilantes thought he was involved with drugs, too, so he and Sharon stayed at a motel after escorting us to the hospital. When he checked his house on Thursday, it had been ransacked like your apartment was."

"You heard them talk about Skinner? I couldn't really tell if you were alive or - " He paused, contemplating the full horror of what he was about to say. " - dead." He swallowed quickly.

Scully chewed her lower lip for a moment. "Oh, I heard you. I heard everything. I think I just dissociated from what was happening. I remember calling out for help, thinking someone had heard." She frowned. "But no one was there."

"Your sister told me-"

"Yes, I've heard all Mel's theories about my family. But telepathy?" She shook her head. "No, not that. Repeated empirical tests of so-called remote viewing and mind reading have shown no statistical correlations higher than random chance." _Dana, don't yank his chain. You've been getting along so well._

"Scully! How can you say that after what we've been through?" He threw up both hands in exasperation, then, grunting, grabbed his left side.

"No heavy lifting, remember?" She rearranged her pillows, then settled back against them. "You should try to get some more sleep."

He nodded before he turned away from her, carefully arranging the sheet over himself. "Scully?"

"Mmm?"

"How did I rate?"

"Off the scale, Mulder. Go to sleep."

"Yes, Ma'am, Doctor Scully."

-o-0-o-

Room 521  
Saturday, 7:30 am

"Honey? It's Mom. Wake up, Dana."

Dana Scully rolled onto her back. "Mom? Why are you here now? I thought you had gone home yesterday evening with..." She glanced over at her partner. _I hope you're still asleep._ She grew serious. "Didn't Mrs. Mulder have to go back to Chilmark?"

Margaret Scully looked Mulder over carefully. "She left the house just as I started back here. Dana, she's really frightened."

She paused, both women remembering Caroline Mulder's strange visit to her son's bedside Friday evening. He had been too groggy from the pain pills Scully had finally convinced him to take to fully awaken when his mother had arrived. She had proclaimed herself just as breathless and shaken then as when Margaret had first called her.

Margaret placed several sheets of paper, folded into a packet, on Scully's bed. "She gave me something for you. She spent most of the night working on this." She leaned close to her daughter's cheek. "She wants you to read this, try to get Fox to read it, then destroy it. What's going on here?"

Scully turned her mother's ear close to her mouth. "I don't know. I'm don't understand anything that has happened to us over the past week. I hope Mulder and I can work this out before someone else is hurt. Assistant Director Skinner's home was ransacked, too. Be careful, Mom. I love you."

The two women embraced tenderly.

Margaret straightened up, then headed toward the door. "Take care, honey. I love you, too." Then she was gone.

Scully sat up before she opened the packet. The weak light of the rising winter sun illuminated the top page. She was surprised to read that she was the addressee.

-o-0-o-

"Mulder, wake up." Scully gently shook her partner's shoulder. "Mulder, this is important, rise and shine."

He turned his head toward the sound of her voice before opening his eyes. "What, Doctor Scully? You just told me to go to sleep."

"Mulder! That was six hours ago."

He heard the latch on the door to the hall click shut. _This must be serious._ As he sat up, he watched her walk back to his side of the room before she resumed their discussion.

"I have a letter from your Mother you need to read. Now."

"She was here? What did she want?"

Scully paused to stare at him, rather than offer an answer. _You really don't remember, do you?_

"What did she say, Scully?"

His partner closed her eyes.

Mulder leaned toward her. "Scully, what did she say?"

"Mulder, my mom and I left. She wanted to be alone with you." _She was crying with you in her arms and calling you her 'darling boy.' I wouldn't have stayed even if she *had* asked._ "She wrote this for you after she and my Mom drove back to Annapolis. You should read it. It's *important*."

He took the packet from her. "Why did you read my letter?"

She leaned in toward her partner's right ear. "She asked me to. She knows something, but she's afraid to tell us outright."

Mulder unfolded the sheets, then read the contents hungrily.

Scully found herself wondering if this had been the first significant communication from Caroline Mulder her partner had received since Bill Mulder's death.

As Mulder finished the first page, he dropped it onto his lap.

Scully lifted the paper away to begin to tear it into small pieces.

Mulder glared at her. "That's mine!"

She hit him with her patented 'I know what I'm doing don't argue with me' look.

He read the first line on the second page. "Oh. I see."

Each page was shredded and flushed as he finished, except the last, which Scully pressed into his hand. "Mulder, keep this. I hardly think your Mother's love for you is something that needs to be concealed."

The paper slid off his palm, unacknowledged.

Since he, lost in thought, was staring out at the half-filled parking lot, Scully shrugged, then walked back to her bed. There, she tucked the paper in the bag of clothes Margaret had brought her.

When Mulder finally turned away from the window to look at her, tears had formed in his eyes.

She crossed back to him, taking his hand in both of hers. "I'm sorry. I didn't know both of her parents were lost in the Holocaust."

"Why is she telling me this now? Why? What can I do about it? What does it have to do with me? What does it have to do with Sam's disappearance?" He rubbed his eyes with his free hand.

"Maybe nothing. Maybe she's afraid of dying with no one knowing."

The depth of the pain behind the hazel eyes he fixed on her seemed unfathomable.

-o-0-o-

Downtown Manhattan  
Thursday, February 8, 1996  
9:00 pm

Guiliano D'Amato stood, his hands linked behind his back, while he gazed over the skyline of the city. As the door to his office opened, he turned from the window. The man who had entered seemed a giant, muscles rippling as he walked past the marble table, past the cases with their treasures. Perusing the man thoughtfully, from the blond crew-cut to the heavy boots, Guiliano saw all the evils his father had told him to avoid. _Papa, you should be proud. The same sort of men Big Papa had hired, the gun-runners and thugs, I'm using to try to end misery, rather than cause it, when the law can't help._

If his visitor availed himself of any of the seats in the room, the careful work of forgotten woodcarvers would have been reduced to kindling. So, Guiliano stepped around the Venetian table to shake his hand in the center of the room, "Thank you for coming."

The giant nodded. He never knew the man rumored to be funding their efforts to clean up America's streets had such wealth. He felt edgy, out of place, as if he were a guest in the home of someone's grandmother.

Guiliano crossed his arms. "The man you visited two nights ago, Daniel Gordon. Tell me about him. Tell me exactly what happened."

'Joe' sighed. "There was something wrong with the whole thing." _Do I call him Sir?_ "There was a woman there. He was supposed to be alone. It would have been better if he had been alone."

Guiliano smiled. "Don't worry, friend. Take your time. Start at the beginning."

-o-0-o-

J. Edgar Hoover Building  
Sunday, February 25, 1996  
9:15 am

Tap. Click. Tap.

Dana Scully looked up in surprise as her partner walked into the basement office. She had alternately cajoled and scolded, but he had refused crutches when he began walking again, relying on an old cane instead. "Mulder, you shouldn't be coming in yet. That leg isn't healed enough for you to be on it all day long."

The muscles in his face worked as he crossed the room to his chair. "Neither should you, Scully, but there you sit. Three more weeks of no lifting and bending, as I recall."

She picked up the mouse, then dropped it back on a pad emblazoned with the slogan 'Linux inside.' "See, doesn't hurt a bit. I needed to swap my disks for a 1.2 Gig, and I wanted to get a new kernel compiled on this machine. There are too many interruptions to do this on a regular workday. I need to be ready by tomorrow."

Wincing as he lowered himself to the hard oak seat, Mulder shook his head. His partner took to computers like a duck to water, but he was happy if they didn't eat his reports before Skinner yelled for them. "What's so special about tomorrow?"

"The evidence lab puts their database online here in the building. With the extra disk space, we can sit here and access their data without running up and down stairs or cramming into elevators. So why are you here?"

"My tapes." He blinked nervously. "When you told me my tapes and the aahh... handcuffs were the best source of fingerprints from my place for the lab, I started thinking."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. If they lifted better prints from Skinner's entranceway and the prints in both places match, why is the evidence from my place still here? They could have watched all my tapes at least three times by now."

She stared. "Three times? That's all, Mulder? You really haven't a clue as to what goes on around here, so you? For the past week-"

Now it was his turn to look over in surprise. _She's been back a week?_

"-No one, and I *mean* no one, has talked to me in the cafeteria. I either get deeply sympathetic looks or snickers as I walk past. It's worse than 'Mrs. Spooky'." She leaned toward him. "I heard from the Domestic Crimes Unit that copies have leaked to the CIA."

"Argh!" He covered his face with his hands. "I should just resign now, right? Conduct Unbecoming of an Agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigations. No pension, no Health Care."

Scully pushed herself to her feet. "But, we do have a lead. None of the fingerprints matched any criminals in Federal, State, or Regional Databases. However, some Security Services load their job applicants into the systems when they check for previous crimes. Sometimes the fingerprints aren't removed. Look familiar?" Walking over, she held up a glossy of a man with long black hair.

Mulder took the picture, then considered. "I think he was there. My photographic memory isn't so perfect when my rib cage is being used for percussion lessons. You obviously remember him though."

Scully nodded. "He called himself Reno, although I doubt that was his real name. He did say his mother was Cheyenne. The company requesting the background check is in Falls Church." She waved a FAX at him. "The home address on the application, is in Springfield." She paused, considering. "Mulder, how did you get here today?"

"Metro. Why?" _Oh. Right. Little feet reaching the pedals._ Those stupid words and her pain were burned into his memory forever.

"My car has independently adjustable seats. I know it's small, but I think you can get enough room to stretch that leg of yours."

He eyed her. _Oh, good. She's in Doctor Mode, not that other mode._ "No Ford Taurus from the official lot, Scully? How will we keep up our reputations?"

She lifted one corner of her mouth as they proceeded slowly to the elevator. "I thought you didn't have a reputation, Mulder."

His ability to hover over his partner's shoulder hampered by the cast, Mulder contented himself with arching his eyebrows. "Well, if my collection is anywhere as popular as it seems to be, I do now."

-o-0-o-

Springfield, VA  
Sunday, 9:45 am

"Looks like they packed up and left in a hurry." Mulder picked through the trash while his partner stepped up on the air compressor to peer into the house.

When the window Scully was leaning on suddenly gave under her weight, she grimaced, covering her head with her arms. Opening her eyes, she found her shoulders hanging over a dusty kitchen sink.

Mulder hobbled up to her. "Scully? I heard a crash." He reached up to guide her back to the ground. "You okay?"

She brushed glass and wood out of her hair. "Yes, thanks. I know it's illegal, but, if you give me a hand, I can get to the back door through the kitchen." She looked up at him, waiting.

He bent over her, concern creasing his brow. "You'll be okay?"

She nodded. "Dr. Scully says thumbs up." She patted her gun before slipping on a pair of latex gloves, then wiggling into the window. Sitting in the sink, she drew the SIG out before moving to the back door.

Once her partner was inside, they moved from room to room, the jumbled contents of which all appeared to verify Mulder's original observation. They holstered their SIGs once they were sure the house was empty.

"Check this, Scully." He had led her back to the master bedroom, where he pointed to a stack of storage boxes, whose contents were detailed records of drug dealings on the East Coast dating back to 1985. They settled side by side on the floor, where they passed the stacks of files back and forth.

"Mulder, look at this. This guy, is - you!"

Turning to his partner, Mulder leaned over her to see the photo she held. "He may be a good copy, but you have the original." His lips twitched at the small joke as he lifted the paper off her lap to read the record.

Daniel Gordon had a life much similar to his own. Oxford, a First in Physics- W_rong College, too!_ -attended the FBI Academy, but left the force shortly after graduation. The history ended "Presently at Large." A few files later, they found Walter Skinner, but he was now Lawrence Albertson. Walter Skinner was his alias.

Scully pushed her hair behind her ear. "When I began examining these files, I thought maybe we should go back, get a search warrant sworn out, and come back to legally claim these. Now, I don't think so. How many innocent people would end up in jail if these fell in the wrong hands?"

Mulder rubbed the cast on his left shin. "How many will end up getting their bodies and houses rearranged is more like it. I don't like this. Either the vigilantes left in such a hurry they abandoned these detailed records, or they were planted here for us to find to discredit their group."

Scully shook her head. "I think this is a trap. All the bedrooms had bare mattresses, broken furniture, then we find this in here, new, clean, and,-" She swiped her now latex-encased fingers over the lid from the top box. "-dust free?"

The agents stood, replaced all the files but the ones pertaining to Mulder and Skinner, then left by the back door, locking it behind them. As they drove away, a hidden camera concealed in the shrubbery recorded images of their departure.

"Scully, I think we need to access some unofficial channels."

"Great minds, Mulder. Besides, I should thank Frohike in person for all those flowers."

-o-0-o-

Southeast Washington DC  
Office of the Lone Gunmen  
Sunday 9:00 pm

Mulder and Scully had returned to the Gunmen's office at the end of the day.

Byers was examining the photo of Skinner under a table-mounted illuminated lens. "I don't get it, Mulder. There is nothing unique about any of the materials that could identify or eliminate any of the agencies or organizations we keep track of."

Langly held the paper up to the light. "There are neither watermarks nor manufacturer indications. It's like someone bought some cheap stock at Staples to run through a laser printer."

Scully pushed her hair behind her ear. "That would be consistent with the actions of a small vigilante group. But all the folders were new, with a minimum of creases. If a small group had been maintaining records since 1985, and since Daniel Gordon here-" She glanced in Mulder's direction, who smirked in response. "-has been such a busy boy, wouldn't there be more data, smudge marks, or something?"

"Hah!" It was Frohike who interjected. "Byers, bring that photo of Skinner over here." The four converged on the light table in the corner where he sat.

"And you thought he was just enraptured by the vision of your loveliness." Mulder bent over Scully, who elbowed him gently in response.

Accepting the image, Frohike, his nose trailing across the print as he slid the hand lens back and forth, checked Mulder's, then pored over Skinner's. "I thought so. See this line here, and there?"

When he sat up and pointed, Byers nodded. "Enhancement, and not a very good job, either. If any secret government organization were trying to frame you, *Daniel*, you wouldn't see these grey areas. We'd have to decompose the image in a computer before we saw any mismatches in shading. This is an amateur job, at best."

Mulder thought for a moment. "So what does this mean? Are we looking at some kind of vigilante war? Planting evidence in each other's files for authorities to find?"

"No, Mulder, I think this is a dead end." Scully rubbed the back of her neck, pacing. "Instead of trying to see where these guys are going, I think we should begin to work backwards." She paused as the four men focused on her. "If this guy Reno signed up, as he put it, to work against drugs in this area, and earned his keep as a security guard, isn't it possible he's done the same thing elsewhere? If we could track him back to when he joined the group, wouldn't we have a better idea how the group was formed in the first place?" She stopped pacing when she passed her partner.

He turned, to move close to her, where he stayed, their toes almost touching.

The partners were face to face, one looking up, the other down.

Mulder shoved his hands in his pockets. "What about the employment history on the job application?"

She shook her head. "The company didn't ask for employment history, just whether the applicant is conviction-free. They're Rent-A-Cops." She waved her hand. "Here today, gone tomorrow."

Mulder chewed his lower lip for a moment. "Tell me again what he said to you, something about Reservation life?"

"Mm-hm. But I don't think he was raised on the reservation. He said his mother's people were Cheyenne, and that when he saw how bad life was there, he vowed, well, you know the rest."

Mulder tipped his head. "So you think he was raised off the Reservation, but went back as a young adult?"

"Yes, Mulder, I do."

Crossing his arms, his focus narrowed only to the investigation developing. "But how would a young man with no education decide to go into Security work while on a Reservation?"

Feeling herself drawn into the hunt, Scully squared her shoulders. "Well, there are Native Police forces on Reservations. Some are real law enforcement agencies, but some are little more than gangs. If he was employed in a group like the latter, he would either live relatively well, or fall out and end up dead."

"No, Scully, no." Mulder leaned back against the light table. "We're missing something here too. From what you said, he saw this as a cause. Also, cheap alcohol is readily available, has been for years. Drugs require money, cash. Reservations are dirt poor places to live."

"Not any more." Byers looked from one to the other. "Do Indian gambling casinos ring a bell with either of you?" The two agents looked over, surprised.

Scully nodded. "Yes, they do. I should have thought of that. It would be perfect. Lots of ready cash. They try to hire Natives so their people have honest work."

"Well, how many are there?" Mulder turned back to Byers, who shrugged.

Scully sighed and reached for the edge of a desk for support. "Mulder, if you don't mind, I'd like to check this out in the morning."

His ardor for the case cooled once he saw that her hands were almost imperceptibly trembling. "Sure, Scully. Thanks, guys." He touched her arm as they walked to the door.

"Agent Scully?" Frohike slid to his feet. "What do you want us to do with these files?"

The partners stopped, then Mulder turned. "Lock those in your safe, or put them under your pillow, or however you guys hide stuff around here. They may tell us something later."

The door closed behind them.

Langly chuckled and turned to Byers. "Think they're getting along better now than recently?"

Byers nodded in agreement, then punched Frohike on the shoulder playfully. "Tough luck, old man."

-o-0-o-

Palazzo De Medici  
Outside Phoenix, Arizona  
Saturday, March 2, 1996  
12:30 pm

As the helicopter's shadow passed over the desert, Guiliano smiled at the approaching mountain. Behind it, he knew, was a recreation of one of the wonderful palazzos his family had visited when he took his first trip to Firenze. Tony D'Amato had used the last of the money from Prohibition days to construct this vision. Water pumped from deep below the surface maintained cedars, poplars, and orange trees from Sicily. _Ah, yes, that view!_ This had been his tenth birthday present; he had never missed a birthday here since.

This was also the most secure building in his family's vast holdings. Behind and beneath the Palazzo was a state of the art communications complex. It was from here that he wanted to conduct a conversation with an old friend, safe from outside monitoring.

Daniel Gordon was Fox Mulder. He knew that, now. When his people had retrieved the files his contacts had stored in an abandoned house in Springfield, Virginia, they had been baffled. The drop location had been concealed as an employment application, then saved in supposedly secure government fingerprint archives. No one should have known the records were there, but the boxes had been opened, the contents rearranged.

He had sent the documents on ahead to the lab down below to be examined for fingerprints. Two had been found on the cover of one of the documents, a right index, belonging to Special Agent Fox Mulder, as well as a left thumb from Doctor Dana Scully. It was as if they had touched the cardboard, then realized its importance, so began treating it as evidence. Oddly, the file on Daniel Gordon was among those rearranged in the box, although the paper it was printed on was significantly whiter than the rest. _An addition, perhaps?_ This Mulder had a checkered history at the FBI. Brilliant and wayward, he had soared early in his career when profiling serial killers in the Behavioral Sciences Section, but then, nothing. The helicopter touched down on the landing pad, beside which sat a jeep that he hoped would take him to some answers.

-o-0-o-

Ashland, Montana  
Saturday, 1:30 pm

The blue Ford Taurus rental crunched down a flat gravel road, rolling to a stop in front of a white, two-story building. The two agents stepped out of the car, Mulder leaning on a cane to help him stand, while Scully opened the trunk to lift out two small overnight bags.

Several attempts to obtain information by phone Monday afternoon proved to be a complete failure, but each call had been disturbingly similar. Initially, the casino employees had offered assistance willingly. But, at the words 'Federal Agent' any further questions were met with minimal responses. The partners had decided they would have success only with in-person interviews.

Mulder walked back to take his bag from her. "Last chance, Scully. If we don't find anything here, it's back to the Vigilante War theory. Let's check in now, then drive directly to the casino."

Scully shivered. _Why am I still achy from the surgery?_ "I hope this place has hot water when we get back. I'm tired of being cold and dusty."

Mulder studied her face. _She usually never complains, ever. I wonder what's wrong?_

The motor lodge was almost deserted. So, for the rate of two singles, the agents had their pick, opting for suite with two bedrooms, sharing a single washroom.

After the partners staggered in, Scully immediately checked the bathroom, where she was pleasantly surprised to see an antique claw-footed tub like hers at home. _Good! I'll take time for a long soak._ Curious, she released the latch to poke her head through the fire exit at the back of the bedroom. It opened outward onto a flat browned field, where she could see for miles. Mulder's room, she assumed, probably had one like it. She dropped her overnight bag on the bed before meeting him in the common area.

The shared space was arranged for long term occupation. On one side was a small kitchen with table and chairs, where Mulder had set up the laptop computer. On the other was a living area, with a long couch and two overstuffed chairs, arranged facing a 36" television screen.

Scully arched an eyebrow at the set. _I know where he'll spend the night._

Mulder stood in front of her. "Well, I did okay this time, right?" His head bowed, he waited for her approval.

She tapped his shoulder so he would look up to see her smiling at him. "Looks good. Tonight though, the ghosts of General Custer and Chief Sitting Bull will probably decide to re-fight the Battle of the Little Big Horn upstairs."

Together, they walked to the car.

"Better than what's on cable, Scully."

"What, no Playboy Channel, Mulder?"

They drove away.

-o-0-o-

Palazzo De Medici  
outside Phoenix, Arizona  
Saturday, 2:00 pm

Guiliano D'Amato's guest had arrived in his underground office, where Guiliano was opening one of his favorite Tuscan wines to share with him.

"So, Guiliano, to what do I owe your fine hospitality today?"

"Well, Senator, in your capacity overseeing the FBI, I was wondering if you could explain some puzzling information I have recently uncovered. Off the record, of course."

Senator Matheson, Mulder's mentor on the Hill, took the goblet extended to him. He tasted the Sangiovese, then nodded his approval.

Guiliano poured more of the deep magenta Tignanello. "What can you tell me about the X-Files?"

Matheson slowly sipped the wine, then gingerly placed the glass on the table. "Guiliano, my friend, I'll let you in on a secret. There are no X-Files. Oh, there were, many years ago, but, now... Now they are just paper, collecting dust in the basement." He leaned forward. "Stick to your War on Drugs. You, perhaps more than anyone but myself realizes, have done more good than a gaggle of Presidential Commissions to save our young people."

Guiliano frowned. _That wasn't what I was expecting._

-o-0-o-

Lame Deer Casino  
Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, Montana  
Saturday, 4:30 pm

Leaning heavily on his cane, Mulder entered a large gaming room, while around him, preparations were underway for the night's activities. He was stiff from the long drive, the casino having been on the far side of the reservation from their hotel. They had subjected themselves to a week of endless hours behind the wheel, crisscrossing the flat, wide terrain. Raised as he was in coastal Massachusetts, he had always assumed distances here were like those in the small states of New England. He had made the common mistake Easterners often do, of assuming that the open roads of the water-free West made for faster traveling.

Scully had already passed through the main room to the offices in the rear. "In here, Mulder!" She was behind a large mural of Native American life on the Great Plains. When he reached her, she stood before a simple white door, knocking.

"Yes?" It was a woman's voice. "Who is it?"

"We're with the FBI, and we have a few questions we'd like to ask you about a former employee. May we come in?"

The door was opened by a tiny woman with black hair which cascaded to her knees. While her clear skin, sparkling brown eyes, and strong features proclaimed her a Native American, her grey tailored suit and pearls bespoke a no-nonsense professional like Scully. "Come in, please, we want no trouble with the government. I'm Deborah Walking-Star." She looked up at Mulder. "Have we met before?"

Mulder shook his head, noting that the two women, even with their heels, reached up only to his shoulder.

As the agents followed her in, Scully stretched up to Mulder. "I thought that was your line."

"Never seen her before in my life, Scully."

"Or out of it, Mulder?"

They sat in wobbly chairs before a tiny desk, for which a stack of newspapers served as a replacement leg. As a prelude to beginning the interview, Scully placed the picture of "Reno" on the desk.

Ms. Walking-Star examined it, then looked up. "What has he done?"

"Nothing, Ma'am." Mulder took up the interrogation. "He is involved in an anti-drug organization that acted on some faulty information. We're trying to track the bad data to its source." He glanced at Scully. "We think that he may have worked here as a security guard, or been a member of your Native Police force. We know his mother is Cheyenne, but we have no information on his father."

The woman studied Mulder. _I'm sure I know him._ She frowned. "Let me check my records." She disappeared into a back room.

Mulder slumped down in the chair, leaning back while rubbing his eyes. "How are you holding up, Scully?"

"Hum?" She was hunching forward, her elbows on her knees, massaging her temples. "I'll live. I never thought we could cover so much territory in such a short period of time. I'm beginning to think you were right to track those files we found in Springfield. If we were in DC, I'd be on my way home, looking forward to curling up on the sofa with Mr. Fuzz Face."

He smiled at the new pet name for her dog. _When will he get a real one?_ "The Red Menace?" He leaned over to her. "If I don't shave, will that do?"

She threw him a silent "Mulder!" as the Cheyenne woman returned.

"Well, I have good news and bad news." She handed Scully the photo. "He worked here for two weeks last year, but he has no other history in our records, and no forwarding address. This isn't like a city place, you know; we accept all the help we can get. Just to have our young men in here for a little while is better than no work for them at all."

Scully nodded. "We've heard that at nearly every Casino we've visited over the past few days."

They rose to leave.

Mulder leaned forward to shake her hand. "Thank you for your time, Ma'am."

After they walked out into the late afternoon light, Scully stopped at the driver's side of the car. "You drove over here, I'll drive back. Stretch out on the back seat and sleep, if you'd like."

"But won't you miss my scintillating conversation?"

The only response was a tired over-the-shoulder glance.

He settled down on the back seat for the long return trip. The road was mostly paved, with few curves or stops, so before he knew it, he was asleep.

-o-0-o-

Mulder was walking alongside a shallow river. His leg didn't hurt anymore, which surprised him. In fact, he felt triumphant, as he had when he had graduated from Oxford. The air was warm. He heard a nearby conversation, spoken in a language he didn't recognize, but understood plainly, the voices coming from people on the other side of a stand of trees. When he had a clear view, he could see little groups of buffalo skin lodges covering the plain.

He looked down at himself. Gone was the wool suit and tie. Instead, he was wearing leather leggings and moccasins and his chest was bare. _But it should be winter. I should be cold. Not here._ In his hand was a torn banner marked "7C." _I should know what this means._ His steps took him past the opening of one lodge. Inside, the women were weeping and wrapping the still form of a young man, Three Elks, who would taken to Paha Sapa and left lying in a crevice, as was proper. There the ancestors would welcome the warrior home. He spoke words of sympathy, for which they were grateful. _Where am I? How do I know these people?_

A group of men his age ran past him whooping, shooting rifles, throwing paper in the air. He found himself running with them, exultant. No, this was better than getting his degree. His people had won a great victory, so could return to the old ways. He caught one of the pieces of paper, then stared at it for a long time. It had green lines on one side, black lines on the other. All of Long Hair's men had carried papers like it in thick wads stuffed in their clothes. He thought he should know what it was, but he felt like he was between two worlds, that he was two people. In one world, these little pieces of paper were very important, but he couldn't figure out why. In this world, he felt free, freer than he had ever been. In the other world, he only knew pain, long days and hopeless nights of pain.

Suddenly, he was standing by the river again. A group of small children had torn up the papers, mixed them with mud to sculpt animal shapes, which they set up all in a line, while they pretended to be hunters. A little boy took the paper from his hand to stretch it lengthwise over the back of a mud horse, so it hung down like a saddle blanket. _That's all it's good for._ He shook his head. _Where did all the paper come from? Where did all that paper come from?_ His other self called it mon-ey.

Wait, there was someone calling him, someone who was deeply worried about him. He thought of those women in the lodge. He should find her, let her know he was safe here. _How did I know it was a woman?_ "Mul-der? Mul-deer?" _Is that my name?_ "Fox Mule Deer?" _Why am I named for three animals?_ That's not his proper name, not Mule Deer. His other self was named Fox, but he didn't like it. Suddenly the woman was there. He caught her in his arms, laughing.

"Mulder? Mulder! Agent Mulder! Wake up!"

He opened his eyes.

A shivering Dana Scully had been bending over him from the front seat to rest her hand on his chest, where he had grasped her wrist in his sleep. She had the driver's door open, so he could tell that the temperature, already cold at the Casino, had dropped during the drive.

"Scully? Where are we?"

"We're back at the motor lodge. For the past half an hour, you've been muttering about money. You keep asking, 'Where did all the paper come from?' I thought you were hallucinating, but you don't have a fever."

He sat up in the back of the car, confused; the dream was receding. "They didn't know what it was, Scully. I kept wondering where they got all the money."

"Mulder, what are you *talking* about? *Who* didn't know? *What* money?" Her teeth were chattering now. "Please, let's talk about this inside, okay?" She helped him out of the car.

He draped his right arm over her shoulders. "It was warm there, like summer. I felt happy."

Her upturned glance was full of concern.

-o-0-o-

Room 105  
Motor Lodge  
Ashland, Montana  
Saturday, 8:30 pm

Scully had not had her long soak, settling instead for a brief, but hot, shower. She was sitting at the table in the common room, watching her partner chattering on the cell phone while she combed out her hair.

Mulder was frowning. "Yeah, Frohike, the Lame Deer Casino on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Find out where they got the seed money to start the place up. I don't think it was a grant from the Bureau of Indian Affairs." He glanced at Scully and rolled his eyes. The Gunman was a nonstop gabber after 10:00 pm. He lifted the black box away from his ear to cover the receiver. "He wants to talk to you, lovely lady."

Rolling her eyes in response, Scully took the cell. Cradling the unit between her shoulder and chin, she disconnected the set on the table, plugged the phone line into her modem port, and typed several commands. "Okay, start your download. Looks like 2 hours. Good. Good. I'm receiving. Thanks, *Mulder* owes you, not I. Right. Bye." She ended the call. "What's he sending us?" She rubbed her face with the hand not holding the unit out for her partner.

He took the phone from her. "Data on how the casinos in the area are set up and funded. He thinks he's found a connection to organized crime, but he's not sure."

Scully narrowed her eyes at him. "The Mob?"

He bent over her. "Yeah. You know, where J. Edgar won't let his good little G-men and women look?" After they both smiled at the thought, Mulder stifled a yawn. "Hungry?"

Scully found herself yawning back. "A little. I'll see if we can get a pizza delivered. I don't want to see the inside of an automobile again tonight."

He headed for his room. "I think I need to hit the shower, too." Scratching his chin, he struggled to think of a quip about the Pomeranian, but failed.

-o-0-o-

Room 105  
Motor Lodge  
Ashland, Montana  
Saturday, 9:00 pm

When Mulder stepped out of the bathroom, he was wearing an old pair of FBI sweatpants. _I thought I left the lights on out here._ "Scully?"

"Don't turn the lights on, Agent Mulder." It was the mysterious Mr. X. "I've come to warn you. Your actions are under scrutiny at very high levels. The course you are on will lead to death. Accept what has happened to you and Agent Scully and move on. That's all I can tell you." Fabric rustled. "Stay where you are."

Mulder heard the outside door open and close. _This is all I don't need._

After a few moments, someone knocked, but it was on the door to the common area. "Mulder? Are you okay?"

He opened it. "Yeah, Scully."

Stepping in, she noted the pocket of cold air in the otherwise warm room as she stood close to him, asking softly, "Was that him?" She waited while he nodded. "What did he want?"

"What he usually wants. To tell me to do nothing, to not pursue this case."

Scully regarded him sadly. "He's probably right, you know. He was the one who pulled you out of the boxcar in Iowa and let me know which hospital you were in."

"Scully! Don't you want to know who attacked us and why?"

She walked to the back door to check outside.

He turned to stand beside her.

She was leaning on the door frame. "You ran off then. I couldn't find you. You ran off. I'd rather...I'd rather not know than..." She looked up at him.

He understood, finally, how fragile the healing of their rift was, so he took her shoulders in his hands to hold her out at arm's length. "Don't start. We made a deal, remember? Starting over?"

She reached up to clasp her left hand over his forearm, nodding as she did. "When you have to run, don't leave me behind." Her lips fluttered in a failed attempt at a smile.

"Is this an addendum to our deal, Agent Scully?"

Now she lifted one corner of her mouth. "I'll have my lawyers draw up the papers in the morning, Agent Mulder."

-o-0-o-

Room 105  
Motor Lodge  
Ashland, Montana  
11:00 pm

Scully had curled in one of the overstuffed chairs, where she had been reading the latest New England Journal of Medicine until it became so heavy it slipped from her fingers, then off her lap. She startled when the computer beeped once, signaling the end of successful transmission and normal file termination. So as not to block his view of CNN, she walked behind her partner sprawled out on the sofa. "Mulder, it's done!" She tapped the bare toe sticking out of the cast. Once she sat, she hit a few keys, then opened the file from the Gunmen. "The guys were thorough on this one." Lines of information scrolled up the screen.

Mulder limped over after her, then, while reading over her shoulder, bent to point to the text. "Stop, Scully. There." His finger moved under a corporate title, 'Resurrection Industries.'

Scully typed the name into the search window, then watched as several entries were displayed, including the Lame Deer Casino.

For some of the Reservations, Resurrection Industries was the sole source of funding. Tracking the company over time, the agents discovered that it had branched out until, large or small, there was Resurrection money in nearly every Native Casino west of the Mississippi.

Mulder shook his head. "The Mob. That's how they operate."

Scully chewed her lower lip as she prepared to run another search. "I wonder who runs Resurrection?" It remained unclear from her tone whether she was asking, or simply ruminating.

"The man upstairs?"

She groaned.

Searching the database again, the name 'Antonia D'Amato Trust' appeared, so Scully instructed the program to display all data on the Trust. It had been established in 1965 to honor the mother of one Guiliano D'Amato, heir to the D'Amato fortune. It was a regular source of grants for minority businesses and charitable causes.

"That's it!" He straightened up, his eyes wide. "I attended some function about two years ago-"

_During my abduction,_ Scully thought.

"-where this guy was honored for some campaign to reduce drugs on the streets." Mulder limped around the room, remembering. "It was one of those stuffed shirt things. Skinner made me go in his place. He droned on and on about using all the resources at the nation's disposal to end this horrible menace."

She rose to walk over to her partner, then stopped to stand before him. "You could be right, but we should be careful. Someone with that amount of money will have friends in high places, and won't like it if you impugn his family honor by linking him to the mob."

A curt nod. "Agreed, we need more proof. _Did I really say that?_ I think we have the man behind our six friends, but why us?" Mulder punched the third speed dial button on his cell phone. The Gunman's number flashed, then was auto-dialed.

A groggy Langly answered. "That you, Mulder?"

Mulder snorted. "Who else? I think we have the man, but we need more information on a Guiliano D'Amato."

Langly was instantly awake. "Whoa there, G-man, you really land some whoppers, don't you? Do you have any idea how big this guy is?"

Mulder sat on the window sill. "Well, he has his finger in most of the Indian Casinos in the area, based on what you sent us. What else?"

"What else? Try *everything*, man."

Wincing, Mulder pulled the phone away from his ear.

Langly continued. "Computers, telecommunications, wait, let me get Byers." There was the sound of Langly pounding on, then, opening a door. "Hey man, get up. Mulder thinks he's hooked Guiliano D'Amato."

Mulder smirked upon hearing Byers mumble about never getting enough sleep.

Taking the receiver, the bearded Gunman curtly addressed the tall agent. "Don't even go there, Mulder. That guy's connections go back two generations to Sicily. He tried to hire me last year to work at his *dream* computer complex in Arizona. He acts like Mr. Squeaky Clean, shedding great tears about organized crime, but with all his money, you have to wonder."

"Well, could you send me some data on him? Yeah, here's Scully."

She took the cell. "Mm-hum. That big, huh? Same protocol? Sure, got it." The modem beeped and rang as she handed the phone back.

Mulder sent his farewells to the men at the other end.

She turned to him. "This will take about six hours. As your ever-attendant physician, I suggest you get off that leg and rest."

He leaned close to her ear. "Make me, Doctor Scully."

She gave him the Look.

He limped to the sofa to lie down. "Good enough?"

"It'll have to do. Good night, Mulder."

-o-0-o-

Room 105  
Motor Lodge  
Ashland, Montana  
Sunday, March 3, 1996  
4:30 am

Be-ep. Beep, beep, beep.

Dana Scully sat up in bed. _Why did I set the alarm on Sunday?_ She hit the top of her travel clock, but the beeping continued. _I'd better stop it or the dog will wake my neighbors._

"Scully?" Mulder poked his head over the sofa to peer at the computer. "It's broken, I think."

_No,_ she realized groggily, _not the dog, the Fox. Bad, Dana, bad._ Thinking only of stopping the noise, she pushed herself out of bed. When she looked at the screen, she read in red flashing letters: "Transmission interrupted. Premature end of file encountered." _What? The Gunmen have never had this happen before._ "Mulder, call the guys. Make sure they're okay." She heard the phone autodialing, followed by one ring, two, then three.

Finally, a breathless Frohike answered. "What!?"

Mulder frowned. "Are you guys okay? We got cut off out here." In the background, he could hear table legs scraping the floor, then the phone bouncing across a desk.

The next voice was Langly's. "It's the Apocalypse, G-man! We've been hacked! Gotta go!"

Mulder ended the call. "Someone broke in, Scully." He rose to look over her shoulder. "How much did we get?"

"Nearly all of it. The transmission was down to the last 3K when the connection was lost." She leaned forward to concentrate on the text. "He may not be as difficult to find as we thought, since that *dream* computer complex is under an estate outside of Phoenix. Just before the data drop, the file was explaining about a giant party/fund-raiser he throws there every year on his birthday, which is - Wednesday."

They locked eyes.

Scully stood to whisper intensely. "We could get to him. Find out what he knows."

Her partner groaned, then flopped back on the sofa. "No, it's too early in the morning for a road trip."

She had to agree, so she turned to head back to her room. However, she couldn't resist a parting shot as she left. "Good night, Mr. Fuzz Face."

"Woof."

_He must be tired, if that's the best he can do._

-o-0-o-

Washington, D. C.  
Sunday, 8:00 am

The cigarette rested on the edge of the ashtray. He loved the silence in the building on Sunday morning. His operatives had detected Guiliano's hired brains accessing the FBI data base, and Mulder's squires accessing Wall Street's. The two knights were aware of each other, circling to find an advantage. All that remained was to throw down the gauntlet, then the mayhem would begin. At the end, only one would remain. Or perhaps, neither. His secrets would be safe.

-o-0-o-

End - Sins of the Fathers - Part II Introduction and Dance


	3. Assassination and Redemption

=====o=====================================================o=====

_Sins of the Fathers_ by Mary Ruth Keller

Part III - _Assassination and Redemption_

=====o=====================================================o=====

Sky Harbor International Airport  
Phoenix, Arizona  
Sunday, March 3, 1996  
3:00 pm

Scully dropped the bags in the back of a different blue Ford Taurus.

After calculating the length of their drive - nearly a full 24 hours - and the weariness of their still recovering bodies, the partners decided to fly. They had come from winter in Montana to late spring in Phoenix, all in a few hours on a cramped commuter flight, where they used the time to review the life of Guiliano D'Amato. The vast power his family controlled was astonishing, but they found no illegalities in the interconnections of his corporate empire.

"Scully, look!" Mulder was just limping out of the terminal towards her. When he reached her, he held out a tourist flyer.

She took the glossy paper, then studied it for a moment. _What is this? A list of the ten best UFO viewing sites in Arizona?_ She frowned. "He's a tourist attraction?"

The gold letters at the top of the brochure proclaimed, 'Tour lovely Italy, and never leave the State!' Below was the Palazzo de Medici, in vivid 4-color print.

She looked up at him. "Who is this guy?"

-o-0-o-

Scenic Overlook  
for Palazzo de Medici  
Phoenix, Arizona  
Sunday, 3:30 pm

Mulder and Scully leaned against their rental car while looking down on Guiliano D'Amato's tenth birthday present.

He pointed to the bottom of the flyer's second page. "Homes of the rich and famous, Scully, paid for with bathtub gin. See?"

"It's a fortress, Mulder." Scully was studying the architecture carefully. "Oh, it looks beautiful, but that's all it is. One door in, and one out the back. No windows on the first floor, just elegant marble to please the eye. The windows on the second floor are tiny and sparsely distributed. It's not until you reach the third floor that you get any significant sunlight. Remember that the families who built the originals fought with each other in the city streets, and they needed security against their enemies."

Mulder regarded his partner quizzically.

She looked up, as if noticing him for the first time. "Sorry, a little of Intro to European Civ spilled out." She pointed at a diagram in the brochure. "All these enclosed gardens could be used to shoot cannons from."

Smirking, he bumped her shoulder with his elbow. "So you think his father knew we were coming when he had the place built?"

"No, I think he wanted to tour lovely Italy without leaving the State." She rubbed her eyes. "So what elegant accommodations have you found for us here?"

He leaned over her. "Nothing so fine as Mr. D'Amato's, to be sure." He pointed up the ribbon of asphalt. "Mesa Heights Best Western, two miles north."

They reentered the car, then drove off.

When Mulder's cell phone beeped, he lifted the phone out of his jacket pocket to his ear without taking his eyes off the road. "Mulder. Hey Frohike, flamed the sucker yet?" He smiled over at her. "They're okay," he mouthed.

Feeling relieved, she nodded.

He frowned at the voice on the phone. "You're back and ready to roll? Great. We found Guiliano's place. It's in the tour guides. Yeah, bummer. Bye." He pocketed the phone.

Scully shifted on the bench seat, aching, both from her injuries and from the constant travel. As she dropped her head onto the headrest, she felt her partner's fingers brush the top of her hand. Her eyes closed, she tipped her face to send him a small smile. At least she wasn't traveling alone anymore, but she still missed her dog.

-o-0-o-

Annapolis, MD  
Sunday, 6:00 pm

The Pomeranian, however, was not missing Scully. In fact, he was standing on his back legs, wagging his tail, scratching at an image of his mistress glowing on the television screen in Margaret Scully's living room. She ran in from the kitchen when she heard, "Our first news tonight is a breaking story about clandestine connections between the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Drug Lords, and the Mob. Unnamed sources have revealed that an FBI agent found, with his partner, savagely beaten in his home last month, was actually in charge of a major cocaine distribution ring. He was also apparently involved in mail-order distribution of pornographic materials. An FBI representative we contacted would only verify that the matter was under internal review and until that process was complete, no further statements would be issued. Connections between the FBI and the mob go back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, according to a recently published biography of the Bureau's first, and most famous, director..."

She muted the sound. _Oh, Dana, Fox, what are they trying to do to you?_ She thought first to call her daughter, but she knew Dana wouldn't want to be disturbed while tracking the men who had beaten her. _Walter?_ No, he's probably up to his ears in alligators. However, there was someone who needed a friend right now. She opened her address book, then dialed. After the second ring, the call was answered. "Hello, Caroline? It's Margaret Scully..."

-o-0-o-

Room 153  
Mesa Heights Best Western  
Phoenix, Arizona  
Sunday, 11:45 pm

Dana Scully turned the knob on the door connecting her room with Mulder's. Their separate quarters were not as comfortable as the suite in Montana, but were pleasantly situated facing the pool and garden behind the hotel. She had chosen the smaller room with the queen-sized bed, while her partner had taken the larger, L-shaped chamber with a double bed. A sofa and chairs sat in the section where his space wrapped along a second side of hers, providing access to the outside through sliding glass doors. A 27" TV on a stand stood along the wall to the right of the door connecting their quarters.

The object of so much of Washington's attention was lounging on the sofa, wearing the same jeans and long-sleeved Dockers shirt he had slept in the previous night. His left leg, abnormally thick from the cast, was propped up on a small coffee table, while his right foot was tucked underneath his thigh. He was restlessly channel-surfing, with the sound off, as usual, but stopped when she entered.

She was uncertain as to how, or even whether, she should proceed. Resolved, she walked over to stand beside him. "Mulder?"

"Hum?" He glanced up at her face. _You look beat, Scully._

"I...I know I shouldn't need this, but..."

He understood. _Scully, how much do you have to hurt before you think you can ask?_ He attempted to relieve her disquiet by assuming one of his best hurt puppy-dog looks, then slipped the throw pillow from behind his back. He plumped it, stood it against the far arm of the sofa, then patted the cushion in front of it.

She tucked herself in gratefully; their silent communication was working again.

As Mulder rubbed her shoulder with the hand he had extended toward her, he continued absently changing the channels, then stopped.

Scully opened her right eye to check what had caught her partner's attention. "Voyager, Mulder?" She watched for a few minutes. "A repeat?"

He looked over at her with a lop-sided grin. "I know, Scully, not as good as TNG. But it has its up side."

"What, women in tight uniforms, giving orders?" Her tease was delivered in almost a whisper.

"Scully! You *do* know what I like!" He waited for a response, but his partner was asleep. This felt right. He remembered as a boy looking down at another head resting trustingly beside his shoulder.

It had belonged to his sister, Samantha, whose disappearance had changed his life. Despite the way he loved to tease Sam when they were little, she knew if she had a bad dream to come to him, not to his exhausted mother. His parents both knew, but did nothing until he turned ten. His photographic memory would never let him forget that day when his Father had marched them both into his study for *the* *talk.* Fox and Sam had stood, rigid, while their Father, his desk chair creaking, informed them that they were not to seek each other out in the dark for comfort anymore.

"You will be a young man soon, Fox, and we'll have no rumors of impropriety about my family. Your sister will have to learn to sleep by herself after nightmares." His father had been right, of course. A child could never understand the complexity that adults saw, or the changes the future would bring.

But that night, when he lay in the dark listening to his sister crying, knowing he could do nothing to help, he died a little bit inside. A seed of hatred for both his parents was born.

-o-0-o-

Palazzo de Medici  
outside Phoenix, Arizona  
Monday, March 7, 1996  
6:00 am

Guiliano rose early when he was in residence at De Medici, so he had already showered and shaved before descending to his underground office.

While he kept all his family antiques in Manhattan, the furnishings here were equally elegant. His rosewood executive desk was on the far side of the office from double entrance doors, facing two Moroccan leather chairs. While working, he could look up at a row of monitors along the wall on his left. Displayed on these were the grounds of his estate, or anywhere within the underground complex. An English oak conference table with carved oaken chairs, stood between his desk and the monitors. The right side of his office was sunken, lined with sectional seating and tables. He encouraged his computer people to use his office as an informal lounge, even when he was in the house.

He had preparations for Wednesday to complete, prior to his wife's arrival from New York. Lucia's job at the United Nations as Special Attache to the Office of Women in Developing Countries often involved extended overseas trips. She was preparing to depart on one this Friday.

However, a problem of a more unpleasant nature occupied him at the present. His groundskeepers had alerted him to sightseers on the road yesterday, erstwhile tourists his security cameras recorded as Agents Mulder and Scully. He fast forwarded through the video recording their actions, first driving to the overlook, viewing his home, finally leaving. Since they had been followed to the Best Western, where they were observed checking in, his operatives had their rooms and the grounds under surveillance. From a late-night phone call, he knew they had retired after taking dinner at the hotel cafe. He would be informed of any further activity on the agents' part when it occurred. _Good. On to more pleasant subjects._

On the conference table were several major national newspapers. _Let's see if Congress and Clinton have come to an understanding, yet._ He walked over to pick up the Washington Post, where the top story was not about the continuing budget crisis- _Big Papa would have fixed these people in a day or two!_ -but a scandal at the FBI.

He read the article. He knew all of this, of course, but now knew it was all a lie. Certain turns of phrase reminded him... _Yes, of course, now I understand._ There was someone behind the rumors, a dark face, cigarettes. His father and Mulder's father had worked with this man. Did Agent Mulder know him as well? Was he working for the man with no name, or was he a victim of his machinations? He checked a file for a phone number. It was time to find out.

-o-0-o-

Room 153  
Mesa Heights Best Western  
Phoenix, Arizona  
Monday, 6:15 am

The phone woke them both.

Mulder had curled around Scully in the night, just as he used to cuddle Sam so long ago. His cell phone was on the nightstand by his unused bed. So, he attempted to slide his shoulder out from under her, to leave her resting on the sofa, but he was too late. _If she stayed here, she must hurt worse than I thought._

She had started at the first ring, so was sitting up, rubbing a crick in the back of her neck. _Was I really here all night?_

He placed the unit against his ear. "Mulder." His hoarse voice had cracked.

She watched him limp around the room, as he listened to the caller on the other end. _Mulder, pacing only works when you don't have a cast on your leg._

He terminated the call. "Scully, that was D'Amato. He wants to meet with me tomorrow afternoon. He said he would 'pencil me in' at 3:30." He shook his head. _Pencil me in, or rub me out?_

She stood to walk over to him. "Alone, Mulder?"

"Yes. He didn't say to bring his Guardian Angel."

"No, I'm sure he didn't." She persisted after a smile at his joke. "But, your Guardian Angel can at least listen in."

"A wire? Don't you think all those goons of his will spot a wire before I'm three feet inside his gilded Rococo front gate?"

"Not this wire." She paused, remembering. "That's right, you weren't at the Seminar."

"What, did one of those standard Bureau presentations actually provide some useful information?"

She shook her head. "No, it was at one of the Computer Shows downtown. Pass me your phone."

Baffled, he complied.

She hit the third speed dial button. "Byers? Mm-hm, this is Scully. No, don't get Frohike." She rolled her eyes at Mulder, who smirked. "Let me talk to Langly."

"Hey, G-lady, what's shakin'?"

"Remember the Seminar at Fed Unix last Fall?"

"How could I forget? Frohike had the flu that day, and when he heard you were there, he was ready to eat his shorts. What about it?"

Scully rolled her eyes at Frohike's oft-voiced obsession. "Remember that Micro Wire System presentation?"

"With the integrated video and speech recognition system? Sure do. Got one a week later. Radical."

"How well does it work?"

"Well, I found a few bugs in the voice activation routines, but other than that, great. Why? You and the Fox-man - "

She frowned. _Langly!_

" - need it to put the I in FBI?"

She smiled. "Yes, we do. How soon can you get it out here?"

"You guys are in Arizona, not Montana, right?"

Scully began tracking, back and forth, in front of the sliding glass door. "Right. It's like May out here. Montana was still locked in January. That help?" She heard keys click in the background.

"Okay, I can take a Delta non-stop leaving at 10:00 from National. Be catching some rays with you guys by 3:30 your time. Say the word, Doc, you can have one, two, or three times the fun?"

She sobered. "No, it'd better just be you. We don't know how this will turn out, so make your return flight tomorrow morning."

"Bummer, Scully, sounds like this is really big. Can't you get backup from Kojak?"

_Kojak? Finding the hacker must have taken all night._ "No, we can't. He doesn't know we're out here, officially. He and Mulder shouted at each other about professional detachment and going through channels for two hours before we both took annual leave."

"CYA. Yeah, been there."

_When?_

"Okay, Doc, gotta roll. You at the Best Western?"

"Mm-hum. Two miles and six social classes away from Palazzo de Medici. Can't miss it. When will you get in? We'll meet you."

"G-lady, get a life! For this I rent a convertible and cruise. Chill by the pool until I get there, okay? Want to talk to Frohike?"

She groaned.

"Good enough. Bye."

She handed the phone back to her partner. "You'll be amazed at this system when you see it. Almost all fiber optics. No metal, except in a small unit that replaces your belt buckle. And, the video and audio are received by a standard TV/radio receiver card. The entirety of the transmission is captured and encrypted directly into files on disk."

"Who developed this, anyway?"

"Oh, a small company in Colorado. They were under contract to the government, but the funding was cut, so they went commercial." _No little grey men involved._ She turned to sit back on the sofa. _Great, now he has me pacing when I use the phone._ "He'll be in around 3:30 this afternoon. He wants to rent a convertible and drive here, so we won't have to meet him."

"Is just Langly coming?"

"Yes, like I said, I really have a bad feeling about this, Mulder. We shouldn't involve those guys any more than we have to." She rubbed her temples. _When will I ever stop aching?_

He touched her shoulder. "Scully, you were here all night." _Don't ask her if she's okay, Mulder. She's always okay._ "You should get some more sleep."

_Tell me about it, Mulder._ "So should you."

He settled on the couch, where he gave her another puppy-dog look.

She laughed. "No, a real bed for me." She walked back to the interconnecting door, then paused. "Mulder, thanks for, uh..." She looked over her shoulder at her partner.

"No problem." He had already picked up the remote to resume surfing.

She scratched her head. _But first, a shower._

"Scully! Come here!" He thumbed the volume up.

She turned to cross back to the sofa, listening as a perky blonde announcer read, "But first the news from Washington: A late breaking account of corruption at the Federal Bureau of Investigation has the Capital City buzzing..." A surveillance photo of Scully and Mulder leaving the house in Springfield hovered over the woman's shoulder. _What next?_ She sat beside her partner as they watched their lives detailed on the morning news.

The tall agent rubbed his face with both hands. "Why this? Why now?"

-o-0-o-

J. Edgar Hoover Building  
Washington, DC  
Monday, 9:30 am

Assistant Director Walter Skinner was not having a good day. His car had broken down on the 14th Street Bridge, snarling traffic for miles. While waiting for the tow truck, _Two hours. What could take two hours!_ he heard the news about Mulder on the radio. The cab he eventually took dropped him at the main entrance to the building, where the AD had to run a gauntlet of microphones and cameras. _Seattle, Mulder. Then Tour Detail. For good. If I let you live._

Inside was no better, since conversations stopped when he passed groups of agents in the hall. He could read their faces, though, all announcing plainly that most of the Bureau thought Spooky Mulder had finally flipped.

When he reached the reception room outside his office he paused. _That smell._ It could be no one but his shadowy superior who stood somehow apart from, but in complete control of, his chain of command. He glanced at his secretary who nodded sympathetically. "Hold my calls, Gloria. I'll be out when I can."

-o-0-o-

Poolside  
Mesa Heights Best Western  
Phoenix, Arizona  
Monday, 12:00 pm

Mulder was swimming. Normally he would have jogged, tiring his body and quieting his mind by concentrating on setting a regular rhythm for his long, loping stride. However, his leg ached with every step, and he could numb himself just as well by stroking lap after lap, up and down the pool. _Not that you weren't numb already._ It seemed all the news shows were full of the latest scandal, starring Special Agent Fox Mulder. _Argh. I never want to hear 'Fox' again._ He thought back to this morning.

-o-0-o-

Scully sat beside him through it all, hearing herself described as everything from his supervisor _Hah!_ to his estranged wife, to their mutual disgust. When neither of them could stand it anymore, she turned the set off. "Enough, we have to concentrate on Guiliano D'Amato. He could kill you."

"And this won't?" He was limping around the room, shouting. "This will destroy everything! All my work, the X-Files, my mother, and you, Scully. I'll never find Sam. Never." He struck the cast against the wall. "I need a run."

"Get your Speedos on."

He turned to her.

"Mulder, you brought you pre-packed travel bag, so I know you have them. That cast can come off long enough for you to swim, just as long as you don't smash your leg into the side of the pool."

It was true. He had had this cast fitted last week. _Only last week?_ It was in two interlocking, hinged pieces, held on with velcro straps, over a calf wrapped in bandages. He could remove the weight to shower, so why not?

-o-0-o-

Mulder had been at it for an hour, so felt pleasantly lethargic. He swam over to Scully, who was sitting at the deep end, swinging her feet in the water, kicking up spray that had soaked the concrete around her. She had showered and changed into a pair of cut-offs and a Redskins T-shirt.

He crossed his arms on the tiles beside her, swinging his feet lazily to keep upright. "Care to join me?"

She gazed at the water, then chewed her lip. "No, I'd love to, but I can't. No strenuous exercise or I start bleeding again. Remember?" Her Doctor mask settled over her face. "You've probably had enough yourself. I'd like to check your leg before I wrap it back up."

He climbed out of the pool, using his partner as a crutch to reach the nearest chair.

She knelt down to probe the calf with her fingers.

Mulder rubbed his hair with the white hotel towel draped over the seat back. The swim *had* helped clear his head, so his sense of humor was back. "Diagnosis, Doctor Scully. Will we have to amputate?"

She snorted. "Not hardly, Mulder. In spite of all your hard work, I think this will heal normally. And, outside of predicting rain, in a few weeks, you'll never know it was broken."

When she finished rewrapping his leg, he caught her hands to squeeze them in gratitude. "Thanks, Scully. I'm sorry you're caught in all this."

"Partners, remember, Mulder?" She sighed. "Besides, according to Geraldo, I'm having an alien's baby. Who could miss that?" She settled back in her chair, then yawned. "I think I'll take Langly's advice and catch some rays before he gets here."

Mulder watched his partner drop off to sleep. He realized she had lost more weight since the attack, that she was running on force of will alone. _You're not?_ He could feel the endorphins from the exercise wearing off, leaving him sleepy as well. _Naps._ He hated them as a kid, when you 'had' to take one, but between his insomnia and the night surveillance, sometimes they were all the sleep he had. _When in Rome, Mulder._

As his mind drifted away, Scully's words 'alien's baby' gave him pause. "Scully?"

"Mm-hum?"

"Does it bother you?"

"Does *what* bother me?" _The destruction of the Brazilian rain forest? The national debt? The dearth of reliable Bigfoot sightings?_

"That you can't have children of your own now?"

After she sat up, she hugged her calves while she considered.

He opened his eyes, then turned his head toward her.

She rested her chin on her knees. "Yes, and no. I had always wanted to have a little girl of my own. Someone who would be prettier and smarter than I am-"

He cocked an eyebrow. _Never, Scully. You're an original._

"-but now, I'm not sure. It's not like the Scully genes and name will die out if I don't have kids; my nephews are insurance against that. Given the damage I sustained from my abduction, it's doubtful I could have carried a pregnancy to term, anyway." She looked over at him, watching her. "I talked with Dr. Anderson while you were sleeping at the hospital. Even so, knowing what I think I know, I wouldn't want to wish harm on subsequent generations."

"But, you wouldn't... You had a wonderful childhood, Scully."

"No, I don't mean anything like that." _You'll like what comes next._ She blinked expectantly at him.

He shifted to face her. "Okay, go on."

"Consider this. If my abduction was experimental monitoring for a multi-generational experiment by some Secret Cabal into human genetic manipulation. ..."

"Or alien-human hybridization." After sitting up, he focused on her intently.

She waved her hand at him. "How could I let my unborn offspring suffer like the Mufon women I've seen? I'm a human being, not a lab rat. It's better to end this with me."

He nodded. "I've been thinking about that letter of my mother's. Scully, I think I know why Sam was abducted." He focused on her eyes. "For generations, Jewish families have intermarried, despite all the persecution we've suffered over the past millennium or so."

Scully nodded, then gestured for him to continue.

"From what I understand about genetics, such close relationships expose unique mutations. Now, some abductees have reported that the aliens are keeping an archive of genetic materials, like the Human Genome Project, except for the whole planet. With my grandparents dying at Dachau, Sam and I are the last carriers of my mother's family's genes."

"You don't have to postulate an alien connection to come to that conclusion, Mulder."

"Scully!" He stood over her. "How could human beings, in 1972, have the technology to kidnap children as Sam was? How? We could barely make it to the moon and back." He began pacing.

Scully noticed three elderly women sitting on the other side of the pool, wearing bright hats and full-support bathing suits. They were surreptitiously watching her partner over copies of Esquire and McCalls. _Good. I'm tired. Maybe I can get out of this conversation without a fight._

"Scully! How can you say aliens aren't involved?"

She smiled to herself. _This could be good, Dana._ "Well, we don't have any tangible evidence one way or the other." She leaned toward him. "I'd sit down now. If you keep parading around, you'll stop the pacemakers in those grandmothers from Queens over there. They seem to like you in those tight... red... Speedos."

He glanced across the pool. The three pairs of eyes were hidden behind magazines. He looked down at his partner, who had settled back in the chair with her eyes closed. _Are you smirking in there, Agent Scully? Well, trust no one._ Since the chlorine was beginning to make him itch, he decided to beat a hasty retreat. "I'm hitting the shower. Back in a few."

Four pairs of eyes followed Fox Mulder's swimming trunks until he disappeared into his room.

-o-0-o-

Palazzo de Medici  
outside Phoenix, Arizona  
Monday, 1:00 pm

Guiliano helped his wife out of the limo, holding her joyfully. He had never, unlike his father, _Yes, we all knew, Papa,_ taken a mistress. Lucia had won his heart in college, so he had belonged to her, body and soul. His two girls Antonia, six, named for her grandmother, and Victoria five, hugged his legs, one on each side, while his son shook his hand. Reynaldo had just turned ten. He was a serious, studious boy, who loved most talking to the computer geniuses in the underground complex. As he herded his family into the garden, one of his men spoke in his ear.

Guiliano turned to his wife. "Lucia, darling, so sorry. I'll be right up. Save me some cookies!" The last statement was for his daughters. "Now, Luther, what have our visitors been doing today?" The man handed Guiliano a small tape recorder and headphones so he could hear Mulder's and Scully's discussion at poolside.

At the conversation's end, he removed the headphones and handed the unit back to Luther. This man Mulder was not his enemy, but seemed to know many of the dark things the frayed black notebooks in the Mantuan safe contained. Guiliano looked forward to their meeting tomorrow afternoon, when perhaps he could make an ally of the FBI agent. Together, he hoped they could end the evil that no longer lived only on those yellowed pages.

-o-0-o-

Room 153  
Mesa Heights Best Western  
Phoenix, Arizona  
Monday, 2:00 pm

Mulder was restless. His mind had begun churning during the shower, but now he couldn't depend on the TV to numb it. All the channels, or so it seemed, were rehashing the latest scandal. On CNN, Janet Reno was denying all knowledge of the X-Files, as she made comforting noises about not wasting the taxpayer's precious dollars on vampires and flukemen. Sally Jessie had lined up a sorry group of con artists posing as alien abductees. Oprah's guests were raised in homes with resident ghosts. _Enough!_ He punched the power button on the remote.

He needed to talk to Scully. They were becoming a team again; he felt as if a part of him had recovered from a long illness. He walked out to the pool, where he heard a sharp rustle of glossy paper. _They really had been watching me. Well, sorry, ladies. Your pacemakers will only have to adjust to jeans and an old Oxford sweatshirt._

He bent over his partner, who had turned on her side and was deeply asleep. He felt for her. Over the past few months, she had tried to extend her beliefs beyond the purely empirical, but events had gone terribly wrong. The Lucy Householder case, the boxcar in Iowa, and Kevin Kryder had all stretched their partnership, almost to breaking.

The only respite had come when he had investigated the strange occurrences with the cockroaches at Miller's Grove. They had talked then, frequently and at length, sharing across microwave phone connections as if each was in the room with the other. For that short weekend, Bambi Berenbaum notwithstanding, they had connected somehow, finding their old groove, bouncing ideas off each other at all hours.

Then had come the cosmic mis-alignment in Comity. _Yes, Mulder, you really went over the top that time. Why did you think that Doctor Dana Scully, forensic pathologist, would not photograph a fresh burn on an embalmed cadaver's chest?_ And Detective White. "The mystery of the horned beast." His head spun. All those hateful words, and she apologized first, then had been beaten trying to defend him. _How many times does she have to prove herself to you? She's stood beside you when no one else would, and you treated her like that?_

Remorse overcoming his usual mercurial nature, he began softly apologizing to her sleeping form.

"Mulder?" She must have heard him, since she had pushed herself up from the lounge. "Is Langly here?"

"Shh, Scully, rest. I just needed to think." He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, as he had often seen her do, then gently moved her arm so she would settle down, hoping she would return to sleep.

But she was awake, reading the pain in his face. "Mulder? We're starting over, remember? Our deal?" She reached for his wrist. "It's all in the past. Let it go. For me?"

He nodded. He knew that for him, it was not over, that he would wake some night in the future, terrified that he had lost her again. But for now, he let it be so.

-o-0-o-

Parking lot  
Mesa Heights Best Western Motel  
Phoenix, Arizona  
Monday, 3:45 pm

Mulder stood on the sidewalk as Langly, long hair flying, pulled up. _He really had rented a convertible._

"Hey, G-man! Wanna go for a spin?"

Mulder grinned. "Later, Langly. That's the gizmo I've heard so much about?" He pointed to the passenger seat, where a laptop computer carrying case with a shoulder strap rested.

"Yupper. I've made some mods I'll need to show to Scully."

The tall agent lifted the case out of the car.

Langly stepped up to Mulder to look him over. "You up for the pow-wow with the Godfather tomorrow? You still look majorly wasted. Where's the G-lady, anyway?"

"Yeah, well, I've been better." Mulder shrugged. "Scully took your advice and has been snoozing in the sun since one thirty."

The two men fell in step walking through the lobby to the pool.

Langly bounced along beside the agent. "Saw you on the Morning news, man. The Doc was right, this *is* big. Frohike told me to make sure you were taking good care of his lady."

Mulder grinned, thinking how forcefully Scully would react to such a description of herself. As they entered the pool area, they saw that she had curled up in a ball, tucking her arm under her head.

Langly frowned. "Frohike would kill you if he saw her like this, man. You guys push yourselves way too hard."

As the FBI agent touched his partner's shoulder, he began speaking her name softly.

Scully sat up, but her muscles had stiffened lying on the thin pad, so she let out a quiet 'Oh!' of pain.

"Hey, Doc, it's showtime!"

She noticed them both standing before her. "Hey yourself, Langly." She slipped to her feet. Looking up at her partner, she saw Mulder was brooding again, probably about her. "You okay, Mulder?" She asked to try to break his train of thought, but he nodded without replying as the three walked into his room.

-o-0-o-

Room 153  
Mesa Height Best Western  
Phoenix, Arizona  
Monday, 5:00 pm

Langly and Scully were discussing the laptop he had brought from the Gunmen's office.

"Yeah, Doc, I knew your 486 wouldn't cut it with my upgrades. The crosstalk detection algorithm needs a Pentium 90 minimum to work in real time, so we can deconvolve the remote transmission from the carrier wave. I could replace it with an autocorrelation circuit, but we couldn't use data compression on the signals, and we would have lost some of the signal to noise ratio."

"What about beating the compressed signal against a chaotic carrier in the control unit and cross-correlating in hardware at this end? You wouldn't lose signal to noise, and would avoid the heavy CPU load. Go with a lighter weight processor and eliminate the crosstalk problem."

Langly nodded. "Working on it. Byers needs to research the microcircuit layout we'll have to have built to keep the size of the control unit down."

Mulder, after a full hour of this, had heard enough. "Guys, look. You can rebuild the computer later. I need to know that this thing works before D'Amato makes me an offer I can't refuse."

The Gunman and the Agent stared at him.

Langly waved his hand. "Chill, man. That's the easy part. Doc?"

Scully picked up a tiny piece of plastic and a loop of fiber optic cable. She stepped over to his side. "Mulder, I'm mounting the microphone behind your ear now. You'll need to hold still while I fit it." She stretched to reach her partner's right ear, then pushed down on his shoulder.

He sighed, then sat in a chair. "Better?"

"Mm-hum. Langly, pass me the CCD." She fitted a tiny cylinder over the top of his ear, then slid it down between the ear and his skull, joining the video and audio sections with a click.

"What, no wires, Scully?"

She shook her head as she picked up the loop of cable. "There are two gold wires imbedded in the center of this fiber optic cable. There's very little metal involved here, less than in my necklace, so it won't set off a metal detector, and you wear the cable inside your belt so it's not visible. One wire acts as a receiver antenna for the units on your ear." She pointed to a gold-tinted block by the Pentium. "That plate is the power supply which replaces your belt buckle. It will get warm over time, but needs to radiate heat to keep working, so don't rest your hand on it too much."

Mulder blinked.

She held up a white square packet. "This slips inside your clothes. It's the control and compression circuit, laid out on a flexible substrate like those used in some inventory systems. If you are searched, unless you have to strip, they'll never feel it. When connected to the second antenna, it sends the compressed dual audio/video signal. The signal from the remote sensors on your ear is polarized opposite to the transmitted signal on the other wire so they won't interfere. You see?" She smiled at the look of complete bewilderment on his face. "Oh, and don't worry about the leather blocking the microwave signal. These wavelengths pass through organic tissues without distortion."

He frowned. He had given up trying to understand what she was explaining after 'two gold wires', but 'pass through organic tissues' he thought he could grasp. "You mean right through me?"

"Mm-hum. But don't worry. The radiation levels are only slightly higher than what you would be exposed to from a good sunlamp, and none of this will be next to your skin. I'll finish hooking you up, so we can send you for a test limp around the pool. If all goes well, you can watch the trip when you get back."

-o-0-o-

It worked. The running commentary Scully had said to provide to test the voice recognition software was scrolling up the screen, while in the upper right corner, sequential images were displayed in a small window.

He sighed.

She was explaining things to him again. "Remember, Mulder, the cylinder behind your ear is actually a miniaturized digital camera. Your hair is short, so the lens won't be covered up, and everything you point your head at is recorded at the rate of five frames per second. The patch mounted behind your ear is a wireless microphone. It picks up all sounds, but the software at this end can only interpret human speech. These squares are other sounds like bangs or squeaks. Oh, and the speech recognition software only works on English."

He gasped in mock horror, then pointed. "What's that blank window for?"

Langly tapped the screen. "That's my crosstalk detection monitor. The company has tuned each of these units to a slightly different microwave frequency, but they can interfere with each other. If that happens, a bar of rectangles appears here, like what you see on your stereo volume displays. It tells us that you are close to another system, or to any microwave source operating at a similar frequency. If the bar gets longer, the other signal is getting closer or stronger, or both. The real time display will slow down, but the data still get compressed and recorded on disk for later playback."

He grunted. "I should have known I couldn't leave home without it."

The Gunman glanced at Mulder before he continued. "In a system direct from the company, one unit would pick up the signal from another, or in the case of an incoherent source, simply cease altogether. The government cut the funding before they could get this problem solved."

Scully nodded. "This is important for range requirements. The system operates effectively over longer distances because the signal is compressed into a narrower bandwidth than normal prior to modulation, but that requires controlling the phase of the carrier wave..."

Mulder held up both hands. "I surrender, okay! It works, I've seen that. Tomorrow, when I meet with the Big Cheese, I'll can't think about any of this or D'Amato will wonder why my brains are oozing out my ears. Anybody else hungry?"

Langly smiled. "My stomach says it's 7:30, and I'm dying for some Tex-Mex. Want to cruise in the open air, G-lady?"

She nodded.

As she removed the bits and pieces of hardware from Mulder's person, he bent close to her ear. "Love it when you talk dirty, Scully."

She arched one eyebrow. "Thanks, Mulder. I always knew Physics would do wonders for my love-life."

-o-0-o-

J. Edgar Hoover Building  
Washington, DC  
Tuesday, March 5, 1996  
10:00 am

Walter Skinner checked his office one last time for any personal effects he would not want appropriated in his absence. Orders had come down from above that he and the X-Files agents were suspended pending completion of a high level investigation into Agent Mulder's outside activities. The dictates were from the visible side of the FBI, from Janet Reno and Director Freeh himself, not from the shadowy powers he knew worked behind the scenes. That would involve Congress, of course, looking for any scandal to bring down the Clinton Administration.

The People's Representatives on the Hill, however, were amateurs compared to the man who had sat in the chair across from his desk yesterday. Skinner could still see him there, smoking cigarette after cigarette, lecturing him on how he had betrayed the integrity of the nation and the FBI. _Yeah, and you haven't?_

But he had one last piece of official business before his suspension began. He steeled himself, squaring his shoulders, then picked up the phone. When it was answered, he heard a familiar voice.

"Scully."

He relaxed. _Good. I can be quick._ "Agent Scully, this is Assistant Director Skinner. I have been instructed to inform you, that you and Agent Mulder are hereby suspended until further notice, pending the outcome of the investigation into Agent Mulder's activities. All work on the X-Files will cease during this time. Also, please do not attempt to contact me at any time in the near future, until a parallel investigation into my own involvement with Agent Mulder is complete." _Good, that was done._

"Sir, I..."

"Some friendly advice, Agent Scully. Drop whatever you are doing and get back here. Given the political mood of this town, Congress is involved, so contact your lawyers. Good luck and be careful." He hung up the phone.

-o-0-o-

Room 153  
Mesa Heights Best Western  
Phoeniz, Arizona  
Tuesday, 8:15 am

Over the noise of the shower, Mulder heard his cell phone ring, then heard his partner answer. He turned off the water to listen. When he heard the 'Sir, I...', he stepped out of the stall, then wrapped a towel around his waist, holding both ends in his left hand. As he opened the door, he heard a click as the phone contacted wood. He realized Scully must be sitting on his unmade bed, using his cell phone where Langly had left it, on the nightstand.

The Gunman had departed for the airport a few minutes earlier, after Scully had reviewed all the failure modes for the wiretapping system with him. He had been 'crashing' on Mulder's bed for the night. _He can afford to rent a Mercedes convertible, but not his own room?_ Mulder had wondered before settling to spend the night where he spent most of them anymore, on the sofa.

"Scully?"

She looked up at him, surprised to see him standing in front of her. _He hasn't even washed the soap off._

His hair was wet, standing up at all angles. "What did Skinner want?"

Having already showered, she was wearing a new pair of jeans, black running shoes, and a black oversized tee shirt with the word 'Caldera' in small white letters where a pocket would have been. "We're suspended, Mulder."

"Oh."

They had expected to be, ever since yesterday.

She crossed her arms. "No, I mean he's suspended too. He said Congress is involved, *politically* involved."

"As in hearings?"

Frowning deeply, she nodded.

He bent over. "But that's usually a higher level problem, the legislative angle, right?"

She shook her head. "He warned us to get lawyers. How can I afford a lawyer? I still have Med School loans to pay off!" _And why do I still hurt so much?_ Frustrated, she pushed her hair back off her face.

Mulder tucked the towel in around his waist, then picked up the phone. "I'll call Matheson." He dialed the number to Senator Matheson's inner office, thus bypassing the receptionist. As he waited, he sat down on the bed beside his partner.

She stood, heading for her room.

He touched her hand. "What's wrong?"

"I need to get some pain killers. I'll be back." Once she closed the connecting door, she bent double, wrapping her arms around her stomach. _No, this shouldn't be happening. I've been very careful not to strain myself. Why now?_ Gradually the pain lessened, then she returned to Mulder's room.

His long legs hung out over the end of the sofa, swinging aimlessly.

Scully pursed her lips. _Mulder, even though I said it was better, you still need the cast._ Easing back down on the cushions by his head, she noted that the phone rested on his chest, not by his ear.

"He won't talk to me."

Since his eyes were closed, she laid her palm on his shoulder. "Won't, or can't?"

"Won't. As in not now, not in the foreseeable future." He reached to take her hand and rub it between both of his own, while he gazed up in her face. "Scully, why is this happening to us? We've been beaten to a pulp, and now we're being grilled alive in the public spotlight. Who is so ticked off at us that they would set all this in motion, then stand back to watch us squirm?"

She snorted. "Who isn't, Agent Mulder?"

"If we are so dangerous, why not just assassinate us and be done with it?"

Scully closed her eyes, then rubbed her forehead with her free hand, not wanting to break the link with her partner. "I don't know. We suspect so much, but can prove so little." The pain was back again. She wanted to curl up on Mulder's chest like a little tabby cat and sleep for a week. _But, not now._ She lifted her hand out of his to flick some soap off his shoulder. "Finish your shower, Mulder. You'll make a wonderful impression this afternoon by scratching through your meeting if you don't." She purposefully stood, then turned her back to him before releasing her quip. "Oh, that towel is just a hair too short. Good thing your partner is a Doctor."

"Scully! It is not!"

She expected more teasing in response, but he headed back to the bathroom.

-o-0-o-

Scenic Overlook  
for Palazzo de Medici  
outside Phoenix, Arizona  
Tuesday, 3:15 pm

Standing by the parked Taurus, Dana Scully checked her partner over one more time. She had convinced him the overlook offered the best reception for the monitoring system, even though he had wanted her stationed closer.

He had agreed, quickly, before she launched into an explanation of topographic effects on microwave transmissions. "Scully, you tested this all before we packed the car, checked out, and left. It's fine." He thought to make a parting jibe.

But she had sobered looking down at the dazzling marble mansion. "Xanadu, Mulder. That's what this place makes me think of."

He smiled at her. "Is the Doctor waxing poetic?"

She turned to him. "No, not Coleridge. Charles Foster Kane's Xanadu." She squeezed her eyes shut. _Please don't let it be Mulder, this time._

He touched her shoulder. "Hey, we'll get through this, okay?"

"Okay."

Starting down the road, he grinned, since he had thought of a tease to drive her somber mood away. "This is Edison Carter, coming to you live and direct..."

"Mulder!"

-o-0-o-

Underground Complex  
Palazzo de Medici  
outside Phoenix, Arizona  
Tuesday, 3:30 pm

Mulder stepped into Guiliano D'Amato's office.

Three men sat to the left of the doorway, chattering while they pointed at a print-out. When the agent moved past them, one of them followed a step or two behind him.

Flipping open his ID, Mulder turned to face the man. "I'm Special Agent Mulder, Federal Bureau of Investigations. I have an appointment with Mr. D'Amato at 3:30."

"Of course you do, Agent Mulder." The voice came from behind the desk at Mulder's back.

He spun around, surprised.

"I'm afraid I have the advantage of you. I'm Guiliano D'Amato." Guiliano walked around the desk to extend his hand, then dropped it when Mulder crossed his arms. He lifted his voice, speaking his son's name in the direction of the pair still seated. "Reynaldo?" A small head popped up between them. "This man's father worked with Big Papa during the war."

Mulder glared at his host. _Your father worked with mine? How do you know that?_

But Guiliano was focused on the boy. "Come, son, remember your manners. You can't spend all day with a computer."

Reynaldo sighed, stood and walked around to Mulder, then reluctantly stuck out his hand.

Mulder shook it.

"Agent Mulder, how big are the computers at the FBI?"

The agent shrugged. "Don't know. I just use a Mackintosh at my desk. My partner is the real expert."

Reynaldo turned back to his father, who nodded, giving his silent approval before the boy, relieved to have finished what he considered tiresome adult business, left.

Mulder stepped up to his host. "Mr. D'Amato, I'd like to ask you about the involvement of the D'Amato trust in several of the Native American Casinos in the Northwest."

Guiliano nodded as he sat down at the desk.

Mulder remained standing, refusing the chair D'Amato had indicated.

Guiliano settled into the deep seat. "Fair enough, Agent Mulder. My family was, in Sicily, one of the poorest of the poor. When my grandfather came to America, he made a new life for us all, though not by the most legitimate of means, I assure you. My father turned that all around, and now I feel I must give something back."

Mulder shoved his hands in his pockets. "But is this the way?"

D'Amato waved. "Have you ever been to a reservation?"

The agent nodded.

"They look like one of the villages my wife, Lucia, visits for the UN. By helping the Native Peoples of this country earn some money of their own, they can start to make a better life for themselves, and for their children as well."

Mulder shook his head. _Is this guy for real? Does he think I buy all this?_ "And what about your anti-drug projects, Sir? Why do you feel it is necessary to work outside the law, using Mob tactics, to stop the crimes the police are paid to handle? Or are these an elaborate cover-up..."

Guiliano leapt to his feet. "Agent Mulder, just because I am Italian and wealthy doesn't mean I am part of the Mob! Any more than that your family were bankers in Austria because they were Jewish!"

Mulder bit his lip. _What does he know about my mother's family?_

D'Amato pointed to one of the leather chairs again. "Please, Agent Mulder sit. First, let me apologize for what happened to you and your partner last month. Had I known..." Guiliano stopped. _Not yet, not yet._

Mulder leaned over the desk's expanse, enraged. "Had you known? Do you know what happened to Scully? How she can't..."

Guiliano held up both hands. "Words cannot erase deeds. I can only offer my sincerest regrets to you both. But, you and I have much to talk about. Please, sit."

There was something in the request that compelled the agent to comply.

D'Amato stood, walked back around his desk, then rested his weight against it. He leaned down until he and his visitor were nose to nose, his hand moving in his jacket pocket. When he spoke again, it was in a whisper. "Agent Mulder, you and I have a common enemy. Someone who is both known and not known to us." He held up his fist, directly in front of Mulder's face, too close for the CCD behind the Agent's ear to image, then opened his hand. He had slipped a foil ring on his middle finger, and on the palm side of the ring was a single word: Morley.

Mulder's eyes widened, then he nodded. The tortured course of lies and innuendo that he and Scully had followed to this point were now clear in his mind. He only needed to know why.

Guiliano's hand vanished into his pocket again, and when it re-emerged, the foil was gone. D'Amato reversed the other leather chair, then slid it next to Mulder's. Before he sat down, he turned to the three men in the room. "Thank you, gentlemen. That will be all."

They walked out, the one named Luther closing the door.

Guiliano shifted closer to Mulder, who turned his head so the ear with the sensors was beside D'Amato's mouth. "At my next command, the lights in the room will go out. I will sit next to you, and I will touch you. Do not be alarmed. This is the only way we can communicate without detection. I have just now learned that one of my employees is an operative for *him*."

Mulder nodded. _I hope you've gotten all this, Scully._

Guiliano tapped a panel on his desk, casting the room into total darkness. He sat, leaned over Mulder's shoulder, cupped his hand behind his ear, and began to speak.

-o-0-o-

Scenic Overlook  
for Palazzo de Medici  
outside Phoenix, Arizona  
Tuesday, 3:45 pm

Dana Scully was pleased. The system was operating exactly as she and Langly expected. She had watched the road to the Palazzo pan by in the video images, ignoring the occasional "Rosebud" that appeared in the dialog window. _Mulder!_ He had been reciting the entire commentary from the newsreel scene as he strolled along the drive, until he reached the front gate and was admitted. _How many other useless pieces of trivia do you have stored in there?_

As he walked into the house, one square appeared in the crosstalk monitor window. She considered it briefly, then ignored it. Mulder was in a building full of computers and communication devices, so that level of interference was to be expected. She observed carefully his route through the house as he was led to the underground center. Given her partner's propensity for landing squarely in situations that were over his head, she wanted to be able to extract him under any circumstances. _Guardian Angel, Mulder._ As he entered the office, several more squares appeared. When he turned his head toward the three men, the window filled with them. Her eyes widened. One of the men was wearing a similar device.

But why would D'Amato have a wire on one of his own men? _No, Dana, he wouldn't._ If Guiliano D'Amato was a 'legitimate businessman' or even in the Mob, as Mulder suspected, why would one of his competitors want to wiretap this particular conversation? _They wouldn't._ She leaned back in the seat.

That only left the government. But the government had terminated the contract before any units were delivered. All but the prototype, as she had learned last Fall, that had been delivered to an unspecified agency. Suddenly, she knew. *He* had to be the one behind all the twists and turns, lies and false leads. The leaks to the media and the hearings would close the X-Files forever, insuring that Fox Mulder and *their* quest would never be taken seriously again. His little secrets would be safe in his dark, smoke-filled office.

She focused on the video again. As the three men left, one square disappeared from the end of the crosstalk monitor. The man was still there, probably hovering outside the door. If the prototype was operating as expected, then Mulder's signal was being piggy-backed onto the prototype unit's carrier wave. If it was, then all the information that D'Amato was concealing so carefully from unwanted ears would appear, eventually, in a dark office in Washington, D. C. She would have handed it to them. _No, no, no. He can't win. Not this time._ If Guiliano's comment to his son meant what she thought it did, they were close to some answers. _So close. But could they get proof?_

-o-0-o-

Underground Complex  
Palazzo de Medici  
outside Phoenix, Arizona  
Tuesday, 3:45 pm

"My father was a good patriot, Mr. Mulder. He loved America."

_Yeah, yeah, been there, heard that._

"The Cold War was just starting then. The government wanted to get certain materials out of Berlin and into this country through unofficial channels, without the Soviets knowing about them. Or so they said. So my father, who knew how to work around 'channels' but never, ever wanted to break the law, called some friends of his father's in Sicily. They set up a secret delivery system, over the Alps and through ruined Italy." Guiliano paused to lick his now-dry lips.

"Go on." The agent's focus was sharpening as he prompted.

"But my father had also learned from his father. Keep records. He tracked who went in, and what came out. I have those records, and a certain William Mulder appears in them, over and over, as going into Germany, and slipping goods, and people, out."

Mulder nodded. So far, this much agreed with what he suspected.

"But then my father grew suspicious. He began surreptitiously opening crates and inspecting contents. His notes speak of a certain shipment of boxes from the Black Forest. Huge boxes. One, in particular, was so large and so heavy, that it took several months to get out of Italy. My father checked this one himself, and the words he whispered to me on his deathbed will stay with me forever. He said it was a silver cylindrical ship, made of metal he had never seen before, or since."

Mulder grasped the arms of the chair. _This is it! With this, I don't need the MJ tape!_ He turned toward Guiliano's voice. "Where is your proof?" His whisper was hoarse, strange to his ears after all this time of listening.

"Hidden. Locked away where only I know. Can you explain these things to me if I show them to you, Agent Mulder?"

"I will try. There is much I still don't know. Where?" Mulder could hear the fabric of Guiliano's collar rustle as his host shook his head.

"Not now. We must meet later. I will give you the location and time."

Mulder felt D'Amato turn his hand over to place a circular plastic chip in it. His head pounding with anticipation, the agent slipped the chip in his pants pocket. _So close!_ And proof enough for his skeptical partner. _Scully, are you hearing this?_

-o-0-o-

Dana Scully was. But she was seeing something else as well. The crosstalk monitor had saturated, then disappeared, just one of the problems Langly and she had discussed. The circuitry could, on certain commands, overload the correction algorithm, sending the system back to its baseline configuration. The Gunmen had not had time to troubleshoot the problem, so they usually rebooted the system.

But she couldn't, not now. She could see two conversations, the one between Mulder and D'Amato, and a second that made her turn the engine over and race down the hill. The last line blinked at the bottom of the dialog window.

'Have to get out of here now, before they detonate.'

-o-0-o-

The initial blast shook the computer complex, sending Guiliano and Mulder flying across the room. They lay there, stunned by the shock wave.

-o-0-o-

Spinning the car to the left, Scully headed for the main entrance. The power to the entire estate was off, the gates hung open, so she pulled the Taurus up just outside. She checked the computer screen, finding it was blank, with an error message at the command prompt, 'Unexpected termination of remote signal. No longer receiving data.'

_Yeah, right._ She closed the case, then slung the carrying strap over her shoulder. She knew the transmission was on disk, but she also knew if she left this behind when she went in to get Mulder, somehow it would be missing when she got him out. If she got him out. She *had* to get him out.

She ran through the gates, through the front door of the mansion. She was stopped momentarily by the dazed and frightened people staggering past her, but she pushed ahead. Guiliano had outfitted his father's delicate reconstruction of the Fifteenth Century with modern emergency lighting, so she tucked her pocket flash away.

_There, that way. Through that door. Left, Dana, past the small fountain. No, not the elevator. Down the stairs. How many flights?_ Mulder had looked up as the door had chimed before. She had seen the music it had made as blocks on the screen, and he had muttered, "Monteverdi?" But the number? _Three, yes, three._ She counted flights of stairs, then pushed the door open. Even the emergency lights were out on this floor.

"Mulder! Mulder, where are you?"

"In here, Scully!"

Her knees nearly buckled with relief. "I'm coming Mulder! Keep shouting!"

"Scully, in here! We're in here!"

She banged through the doors, slid to a stop, then turned to follow the sound of his voice. "Mulder, are you okay?" She knelt beside him, touching his shoulders, feeling his head.

"Yeah, I am. Find D'Amato. He knows, Scully, and he has proof. We've got to get him out of here. He was beside me before the explosion."

They both began searching with their fingers in the darkness, calling for Guiliano.

"Agent Mulder?"

Scully crawled toward the man, touching his hand, then feeling both legs. She could hear Mulder's breath beside her as her medical training took over. "Can you move, Sir? I'm a doctor. Are you hurt?"

Guiliano rolled onto his hands and knees. "No, I'm fine. Agent Mulder, there is a safe in my office...Blessed Mother, Lucia! The children! I have to get them out!" He ran out of the room toward the stairs, the two agents right behind him.

Mulder began to fall back, burdened by the cast.

Scully turned to pull him along.

A second explosion shook the building.

The agents climbed the stairs, before pushing into the main house. There was more light here, then they saw why: the Palazzo de Medici was burning. Guiliano was halfway up the stairs in the main part of the house, calling out for his family.

_No! Not fire!_ Mulder cried out in his head. Then it was all around them. Mulder froze, pulling Scully to a stop.

"Mulder! We've got to get out of here, now! Come on, I can't carry you!" She looked in his eyes.

The terror within burned brighter than the flames without. Her partner was rigid.

Desperate, she stood on the tips of her toes to yell in his ear, "Mulder, I know where Sam is! Let me take you to Sam!"

The terror blinked, then nothing. "Sam." He fell limply on her.

She groaned as the deep pain she had been trying to ignore swelled up from within her. _I have to get us out of here, or we'll both die in this place._ She began dragging her partner back out the way she had come in. Her heart was pounding, the adrenaline numbing her senses. She kept moving toward the front door. _Almost there._ She felt, rather than saw, Guiliano carrying two children and pushing past her.

Suddenly, they were outside. The air felt cool on her skin; Mulder was beginning to come out of his trance. She fell just outside the door; her partner landing on top of her.

-o-0-o-

Fox Mulder was outside. He didn't know why he was there, but he was outside and lying on top of Dana Scully. He had to get them further away from the house, he knew, before the rest of the structure collapsed on them. He stood up, trying to set her on her feet.

She was shaking, whispering 'no more' over and over again.

"Scully, stay with me!" He couldn't carry her, not with his leg, but she was semi-conscious. _That would have to do._ He felt the computer banging against his hip. _She still has it. We have the proof._ Remembering the plastic circle in his pocket, he hoped it hadn't melted in the heat. D'Amato was outside with them, and his family. They would finally have proof. He spied the tail of the Taurus just beyond the gate, so guided his partner to it.

-o-0-o-

"Reynaldo!" Guiliano turned to his wife, who was holding the two girls. "Lucia, where is Reynaldo?"

Remembering, she looked up in terror. "He was underground, talking to the new network programmer." Her eyes widened in horror. "No, no, not Reynaldo. Not my son! Guiliano! No!"

D'Amato ran back toward the house. Several people tried to stop him, crying out that his son was gone, to stay here, but to no avail. Guiliano D'Amato ran inside just before his tenth birthday present heaved under a third explosion and fell in on him.

-o-0-o-

Mulder slipped into the back of the Taurus, where he hoped to shield himself and Scully from the flying debris. He held her until the shaking stopped.

Slowly, she became fully aware of him. "Mulder? Are you okay?"

He laughed, a grim bark. _Would my father have run back into a burning building for me?_ "Yeah, I'm okay. How did I get out? I remember fire, and something about Sam. Then nothing."

She slid her legs down to the floor so she was upright on the seat, still leaning against him. "I'm sorry. I told you I knew where Sam was. It was the only way to make you move because you were rigid with fear. I had to say something to you to try to make you leave." She flipped open the laptop. "It's all here. I recorded everything Guiliano said to you, see?" She scrolled back through the file.

It was, as was the plastic circle. But the man who was the key was gone. Mulder shook his head. _So close._ Then he remembered. "Didn't D'Amato say something about a safe in his office?"

She frowned.

They scrolled back through the images from the underground meeting before the lights were turned out, but could see nothing that looked like a safe, or would conceal a safe.

Scully rested her hand on her partner's arm. "He has more than one office, you know."

The agents exchanged a glance, then slid out of either side of the back seat. Mulder opened the driver's door to sit, but his partner was missing. He ran around to her side of the car, where she was kneeling on the ground, doubled over, gasping.

He helped her into the passenger seat. "Scully, what is it? Do you need a doctor?"

She shook her head. "No, we have to find that safe. I'll be okay. Let's go." She buckled herself in, her lips drawn in a tight line.

-o-0-o-

The man known as Luther watched them pull away. He had stood behind the car during their conversation, knowing that although their speech was not audible, the video signal would be analyzed, their lips read. They would be followed.

-o-0-o-

Washington, D. C.  
Wednesday, March 6, 1996  
8:30 am

The cigarette, left unattended after a single drag, burned in the ashtray. He had made this decision, signed this same form, more times than he cared to know. He was about to break a pledge to a dead friend, but now, he paused. He was the only one left from those days; what he was about to order would shatter the last link with a second generation. The chair squeaked as he rose to gaze out over the monuments and boulevards.

They were too close to the truth. Guiliano D'Amato had died before delivering all he knew to Fox Mulder, but the documents were still intact. There was a trail from the information Mulder and Scully had to those papers. They would traverse that path within a day or two, before he could stop them through the strategy he had already initiated. No, he had no choice. He had to sign the termination orders for the two agents.

A knock interrupted him. "Sir?" It was the same stocky young agent. He had seen much, and, the old man hoped, learned much, from the past month, but was no more confident than when this had begun.

"Yes?"

"There's someone to see you, Sir. They gave the password."

His annoyance over the way the agent botched his English was a momentary diversion. _Who still knew the password?_ All were dead, or so he thought. "Has *he* been searched?"

The agent fidgeted. "They're clean."

The old man rolled his eyes. "Very well. Send him in." The agent walked out as quietly as he had entered, while the Smoker closed the folder, then dropped it on the desk.

"Well, even though I haven't seen you in years, I would know this was your office. You still sit, day after day, in the dark, don't you?"

_That voice._ He was transported back through time, fifty years and more, until he was a young man again, sitting, gazing across the office at the most beautiful woman he thought had ever seen.

Caroline Podhowitz.

She turned on the lights.

He blinked until his eyes adjusted to the sudden onslaught. He saw that time had touched her too, but she was as lovely to him as ever. "Caroline! So good to see you. So sorry for your loss." He had spoken these words so smoothly anyone listening in on their conversation would have thought them genuine. He fervently hoped she would never learn how well he was aware of the cause of her husband's death. "Please, sit. How are you?"

"Well, my Mystery Man, tell me something."

That took him back. He had worked in the office under an alias, something he had told only her. She would tease him at lunch about spying on spies, before asking probing questions about the computer he was building.

"Anything, Caroline."

"Why did Bill Mulder want to marry me?"

His face fell. _Should I tell her the truth, or a comforting lie?_ The lie would be that Bill Mulder adored her, as did he. But he opted, for once, for the truth. "You weren't interested in him. You were a challenge to him. Here he was, the dashing spy, running in and out of danger, and you didn't ooh and ah at him like the other girls in the office."

She sighed. "I always thought so. I knew he didn't really love me. I sat up in that big house in Chilmark for years, waiting for him to come to me. Massachusetts is a cold state when you are all alone."

_Yes._ He remembered her from then. She had been so vivacious, so urbane, this Jewish girl from Vienna. She had come from a lively world of grace and culture as a refugee to war-time Washington, where her skills with languages had earned her instant respect and an important job during the war. "Caroline. You should have come back to work. You didn't have children for the longest time. We could have used you. The computer industry was just getting started then."

She shook her head. _Dana Scully is so fortunate, to be alive now, and free to do as she chooses._ "Married women didn't work after the war. You know that. It was so hard, seeing all those happy women pushing their little carriages up and down the sidewalks, and be waiting fifteen years for one of my own. Before I knew about Fox, I thought I was too old to have children. Then there was my darling Sam. I was blessed. For a while." Her face clouded.

"Caroline, why did you stay with him?"

Gazing out the window behind him, she saw only the morning sky. "He promised me he would find out what happened to my parents. He said that was why he had to be gone so much, in Europe. I wanted to go back with him, just once, but he would never let me go home."

He studied her face. _She only knows the cover story._

"Do you know how I found out what happened to them? I came down to visit my son last year. He was too busy, as usual, to spend much time with me. I went to the Holocaust Museum. Their faces were on the wall! My parents!" She stopped, overcome. "I believed Bill until that moment, but then I knew. He had never been looking for my parents. It was all a game with him."

_Should I play along, or end this quickly?_ For her sake, he chose to end it quickly. "Caroline, I would love to talk more, but..."

"You're busy. Still solving the world's problems, I take it."

He nodded.

She looked down at her fingers. "I'll come to the point. Why are you doing this to my son?"

He started, then stared at her. "Caroline, I'm..."

She held up her hand to silence him. "Don't lie to me. I recognize your methods. They were our methods, for a while. Back when we had to keep the world safe from tyranny."

He stood to point out the window behind him. "Caroline, what do you see when you look out this window? Or should I say, what don't you see? You were raised in Europe. What don't you see?"

Caroline rose from the chair to walk over to him. She looked out over the obelisk, the Greek temples, the domes, and in the distance, the Cathedral, rising into the sky, like so many she remembered from Europe.

"Walls. There are no walls out there, Caroline. And do you know why?"

She turned to look closely at him for the first time, observing the deep lines scored in his cheeks. "Why?"

"This is a nation that has not been invaded by a foreign power for almost two hundred years. And why? Because people like me have made sacrifices, choices, for that security."

"But, there is no one to fear anymore. The Soviets..."

"The Soviets! Did you really think all this secrecy was about the Soviets? No, there is a more dangerous enemy out there. We must be ready. What your son is trying to do will weaken this nation when it must be most prepared. The things he wants to expose must not come out, ever. That is why I am trying to stop your son."

She spun on one foot, not wanting to look at him anymore. The gesture flipped the cover on the folder. She looked down, started in horror, then she grabbed the papers. "You would kill him?"

He tried to take them, but she was too quick.

She began ripping the pages, first in half, then quarters, then smaller and smaller, until they were confetti. She knew, now. "You took my girl. You made Bill choose, and he chose my girl. You had him killed, didn't you? Didn't you? And now you would take my son. You are a monster!"

"No, Caroline, no!"

She stalked toward the door.

"Caroline! I give you his life!"

She faced him.

"But you must give me your silence. You must not tell him what you know. Your silence for his life, and the life of his partner."

Nodding, she left without a word, extinguishing the lights as she closed the door.

He turned back to the window. He would keep the promise he had made to Caroline, since he knew she would keep hers. The Agents would live. He would simply work through other channels, devising new strategies. Fox Mulder had won this battle, but it was still a long war.

-o-0-o-

End - Sins of the Fathers - Part III Assassination and Redemption

32


	4. Reset

=====o=====================================================o=====

_Sins of the Fathers_ by Mary Ruth Keller

Part IV - _Reset_

=====o=====================================================o=====

Sky Harbor International Airport  
Phoenix, Arizona  
Tuesday March 5, 1996  
10:00 pm

"Next please." Janice Stewart took the credit card offered. "And what is your destination today, Sir?"

The man before her seemed familiar with the routine. "La Guardia Airport, New York City."

Janice tapped several keys. "And how many are in your party?"

She heard an impatient sigh. "Two."

The brunette behind the counter adjusted her glasses. _Or was that relief?_ "And will that be coach, business, or first class?"

There was a catch in the tenor as the man spoke. "First class."

"Business."

Janice looked up. It was the first time the petite auburn-haired woman had spoken. The ticket agent could see why as she surveyed finely chiseled classical features drained of any color. _Poor woman must have the flu, and bad._ Janice winced at the burned patches she saw on the woman's jeans. _Not the flu. Accident._ Then she lifted her head further to take in the man accompanying her. He too, had burns, dark as his deep, haunted hazel eyes. _Time to step outside the box, Jan. Help your fellow human being._

"Sir, I see you have several thousand frequent flier miles on a second account. Let me transfer those to this card. Then you can both fly first class for the price of business." The overwhelming gratitude pouring out of those same haunted eyes were all the payment she needed. She transferred miles from her own account to one Fox Mulder, for a pair of non-stop first-class tickets for himself and Doctor Dana Scully. _Must be one of those couples where she keeps her own name._ The tickets emerged from the printer.

"Check-in and seat assignment at the next booth, please." She placed the two tickets in one folder before handing it to him. "Thank you for flying Delta Airlines. Enjoy your flight." She couldn't tell these two to 'Have a nice day.' "Next please." She watched out of the corner of her eye as the pair walked slowly to the gate area. He had a cast on his left leg, his arm draped over her shoulders as she acted as his guide and strength. Or was her arm wrapped around his waist for comfort while he was her support? _It was difficult to say._

-o-0-o-

Mulder let out a frustrated puff of air as the strap for the laptop carrying pack slid off the shelf of the overhead compartment, narrowly missing his ear. Twisting the zippered cloth satchel by ninety degrees, he stretched his free hand blindly towards his partner, expecting her to place the second laptop case in it. When she did not, he glanced down at her. _Oh, Scully, why didn't you tell me?_

Her eyes tightly pinched shut, Scully had crossed her arms over her abdomen, the thin bag forgotten on her lap.

Mulder's hand hovered over her shoulder, as he cast about in his mind for any distraction he could offer. "I think you're right, you know."

The change was instantaneous. As her eyes snapped open, her small, hunched shoulders immediately squared and flattened. "Right?" She tipped her head back to meet his downward gaze.

He lifted the computer off her lap. "About D'Amato's office. The safe he mentioned must be in New York City, as you thought."

The creases in her forehead smoothed. "Oh, did the Gunmen have anything new?"

After he closed the overhead compartment, he slid one leg past her knees, hopping slightly to reach his seat. "Just that the family didn't really begin to expand its empire geographically until after the Korean War. So, if the notes are from 1945, they might well be somewhere in the original D'Amato office building."

Scully forced a tiny grin. "Another batch of secrets hidden in a basement." She blanched as the pain slanted her face into a porcelain mask.

Suddenly overwhelmed, Mulder stared down as he buckled his seatbelt. "Yeah." When he could speak clearly, he eyed her carefully. "Langly's working on enhancing the images from the surveillance CCD that we downloaded to them, in case we missed anything. Frohike's double-checking on the P.O. boxes they set up for us." When Scully shivered, Mulder bent towards her instinctively. "Byers liked your suggestion that we mail multiple back-ups of the conversation using regular and registered mail, as well as storing it on every hard drive we had." He tipped his head forward. "He thinks you're finally paranoid enough to fit in with the rest of us."

Scully glanced over at his eyes, which were grey with worry. "I guess I should be flattered."

Slightly relieved, Mulder shifted against the thick cushions. "Get some rest, Scully. We'll see if this is the real thing or some gigantic hoax when we reach La Guardia, but that's hours yet."

She clenched her fists, then forced herself to relax. "We can't let this opportunity go by, Mulder. We've lost too much already."

The dark-haired agent slipped his hand over one of hers, surprised, as always, by the differences in color and size. "We won't. Not now. Not anymore."

-o-0-o-

Had they known the plans of the smoking man in the dark room, they would not have pushed themselves so hard.

His old friend Tony had hidden the documents so well that even the old spy was not aware of what was in them. He would save his people the time and expense by letting them find the papers for him. The battle would be joined again, but on his terms, not theirs. He was preparing a new strategy that would keep them busy until he was ready to strike back.

-o-0-o-

"Scully?"

She lifted her head off the seat. _Just let me sleep._ "Yes, are we there yet?"

"No."

_Then why?_

He slipped his arm around her back. "How long has it been?"

_He knows._ She straightened, then opened her eyes.

All deep concern and fear, he was staring down at her as he released her to settle in the wide seat.

"I'm not sure. I've hurt so much since the attack, I didn't always know the difference between the ribs and well, down there." One corner of her mouth turned up slightly. "Yes, Mulder, you heard me say that. The Great Doctor Dana Scully, like most other physicians, is her own worst patient. I didn't want to think I was bleeding down there, so I didn't, not really until yesterday."

"And having to drag me out of the Palazzo only made it worse."

She grasped his shoulder momentarily. "I wasn't going to leave you. I had to get us both, and the computer, out of there. I'm just glad you were able to finish the job, or it wouldn't have mattered."

"And I just want to thank you, for staying with this, again. But, Scully, I need to know."

"Need to know what?"

"How bad is it? How long do you think you have?"

She smiled at him. "You mean how long before you get to set me on a satin pillow and tell me to stay put while you take all the risks yourself?"

"I'd have put you there after you were returned, you know that, but I know you wouldn't stay. No, I know you want to see this through. You wouldn't be the Great Doctor Dana Scully if you didn't. I just need to know that by doing so, you won't hurt yourself worse." His gaze dropped to her hand, resting on his arm. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life visiting a lonely grave either." _In my case, it wouldn't be so long._

"Mulder, I..."

"No. I really mean it, Scully, how bad do you think the bleeding is?" They were nose to nose, now. "How long do you think you have before you have to stop? That determines how much we try to do in New York, and when. *No* *overestimates*, either. We're on the edge here as it is, you and I. Neither of us can get through this without the other."

She nodded. "Oh, I know that." _I've been trying to tell you that since New Mexico._ "It's just hard for me to be specific. If I knew the bleeding was just from the surgery, I would give you a standard medical textbook estimate, but sometimes I think something else is wrong."

The look on his face showed his horror at her words.

She arched both eyebrows. "I think, think, I'll be fine for the next few days, if I can get some rest tonight. After that, I'll need to check into a clinic or hospital for some tests, so plan on New York. After that, we'll see how rough it is."

He nodded, letting her settle back down next to his shoulder to sleep.

-o-0-o-

Somewhere over the Mid-West  
Wednesday, March 6, 1996  
2:00 am

Sarah Rogers carried three pillows up to the family in the first row of business class. Finished with her errand, she was curious, so she pushed the corner of the first class curtain aside, just enough to peek. _Ah, that was the couple the other flight attendants were talking about in the back galley._ The man was immensely handsome, in a boyish way, but what had made Deedee flush with infatuation was his tenderness. _Yes, tenderness. Deedee was right about that._

The man was tucking a pillow under his sleeping lover's _Wife's? Girlfriend's? I hope not_ head, which had been turned toward him. DeeDee had seen them earlier, with their faces close together, speaking so softly she could not overhear them. Then, as Sarah watched, he draped one blanket over her lap, a second over her chest, making certain it was secured behind her shoulders. Finished, he shifted as close to her as the seat allowed, setting his arm against her covered one, pushing her hair back off her forehead, rubbing his thumb against her cheek for a moment or two. Most men, when in public, would not have been so carefully attentive. She wondered what had forged so strong a bond between them.

Sarah was convinced she had seen them before. Then she inhaled sharply, recalling the face on the latest Newsweek about the Scandal at the FBI. It was that agent accused of dealing drugs. That woman must be his partner.

_Back to work, Sarah. No, wait._ The woman's hand had flopped, supine, onto the man's knee. He took a deep breath, then lifted his head to check the woman, brushing that stubborn lock of hair behind her ear. He tucked her arm back under the blanket, then shifted to face her before settling back to sleep himself.

No. The reports must be wrong. Such a pair would not be so gentle, so comfortable with each other. Whatever had happened, and the aroma of smoke was detectable, even five feet away, had happened to them, not by them. She wished them well, then turned to begin serving drinks.

-o-0-o-

Central Park  
Manhattan Island  
Wednesday, 8:00 am

The agents stood at the intersection written on the chip. While Guiliano D'Amato would never meet them there, the partners wanted to examine the location for possible clues to the safe's whereabouts.

As Mulder looked over the green expanse, Scully checked the street for an ambush. "It's the right time. See anything, Mulder?"

A glint of sunlight off the foot of a park bench caught his eye, so he nodded. Once they passed through a hedge row, she saw it too. As they bent over it, the object became identifiable: a key. He knelt to attempt to pick it up, but it was wedged under the metal. Scully passed him his pocketknife, which he used to work the key free. The letters RJM were inscribed on one side.

He held it out to her. "Think this would fit a safe?"

She took it to turn it over several times in her hand. "Not a modern one, but my grandfather had one similar to this for a safe of his father's. It would make sense, if the documents had not been moved, but since D'Amato was so careful about revealing the location, you would expect he would have locked the papers in a vault."

He was kneeling again. "There's something more here, Scully." He wiggled out a small scrap of paper, with the words "M. The key. L." in tiny letters on one side. On the other, was the combination. Mulder realized the note must be from Lucia, that D'Amato must have instructed her to leave the key and combination here before coming to the Palazzo. He must also have intended to leave the Agents to privately examine the papers, while he would draw everyone's attention to the gala party out west.

Mulder stood. _Not today._ "So where is this downtown office of his?"

Scully pointed to a skyscraper some five blocks away.

-o-0-o-

Guiliano D'Amato's Office  
Manhattan, New York  
Wednesday, 8:30 am

The guard at the front desk had asked to see 'it.' When Mulder had shown him the chip, key, and paper, not knowing which 'it' the man meant, the uniformed attendant had immediately taken them to the Penthouse Office.

"I'll be right outside, if you need anything." He unlocked the door.

Mulder held it open for Scully, touching her lightly on the back as she passed him.

She lifted one corner of her mouth at the familiar gesture. _Been a while, Mulder._ She gasped at the finery when the lights flickered on, then the drapes slid open, just as they were programmed to do.

Then they both saw the antique Mantuan container with the letters RJM inscribed and gilded on the door. After a verifying exchange of glances, they moved around the marble table, the ornate scrollwork chairs, and the Venetian "desk" to reach the safe. Mulder motioned towards the drapes. Spotting the control panel under the table, Scully toggled the switch. Once the view from the outside world was blocked, he opened the safe.

It was all there.

If he hadn't been sitting on the floor already, his knees would have buckled. "We got it!" He removed the notebooks, creating two stacks of documents on the left side of the table.

Scully slipped the Gunman's laptop out of its carrying case to patch the CCD directly into the RF receiver card with a video cable. This she did not want to broadcast to the smoking man in the dark room.

The system had a snapshot mode, to record a single frame with a tap on the Enter key. The work became almost hypnotic for them. Put a notebook on the table, snap the front, open, then snap the front and back of every page. Move the binder aside, open another. Thunk, tap, flip, tap, flip, tap, tap, flip, until the two stacks on the left dwindled to nothing. Four hours had passed while they had been working.

Scully sank into one of the delicately carved chairs. She had stood the entire time, holding the CCD about a foot above the page so the paper filled the field of view. She ached all over, but, this time, she didn't really feel the pain.

Her partner was in ecstasy, sitting, wide-eyed, at the desk. It was as if all the joy missing from the lonely and silent Christmases and birthdays of his life had been poured back into him in the past four hours.

"This is *it*! This is *it*!" He had repeated in wonder, as the receipts, manifests, and photographs passed before his eyes. When he saw the image of the silver cylinder, he knew, *knew*, everything he had ever read was true.

But now she had to bring him down to earth, to remind him of the demons on their tail. "Mulder, I think we should talk about..."

He still was in another world.

She stood to walk around to him, resting her hand on his arm.

He noticed her, finally. Rising, he grasped both her shoulders, nearly lifting her off the floor. "Scully, did you see? Now do you believe?" His eyes were glowing, the hazel irises contracted down until the pupils were almost pin-points.

"Mulder, I know what I think I saw." She frowned. "But I know this for a fact. If we don't get out of here soon, none of this will see the light of day again."

He released her. _She's right._

Scully sighed. "Also, we need to make a decision here." When he raised an eyebrow at her, she continued as she waved her hand at the haphazard stack of binders. "Should we leave these behind, or take them with us?"

The choice was agonizing. If they took the papers, they would be Scully's tangible proof that could be tested for authenticity. But if they took them, they would be hunted for the rest of their lives by the shadow government. Would the images alone be enough given the technical capabilities available to animators and hoaxers today?

Mulder the Believer and Scully the Skeptic reached the same conclusion. They had to have both the images and the documents.

-o-0-o-

Penn Station  
Baltimore, MD  
Wednesday, 8:30 pm

It had been another frantic afternoon of work. After sending the images to the Gunmen, the partners had carted the notebooks down to the building's mail room. Mulder packed the boxes with two binders each as Scully kept track of which was which on the computer. They had taken Amtrak out of New York, using every stop to mail one or two of the boxes to the locations used earlier for the copies of D'Amato's conversation.

She slumped back against the oak bench, waiting for the boarding call. "That's the last one. We'll have to move them out to safe deposit boxes later."

He sank down beside her, then leaned into her shoulder. He wanted to tell her again, how much her work meant to him, but words were beyond him at the moment, so he lifted her hand off her jeans, enclosing it between his two. "Scully, I..."

A small cry of surprise and empathy escaped her when she saw his eyes glistening.

The station-master piped on a small whistle. "All aboard!"

She jumped, but the interruption had focused her partner.

He released her fingers. "...think we'd better get to our train."

As they descended the stairs to the platform, Dana Scully smiled to herself. _And to think, G-man, your tape collection is legend at the CIA._

-o-0-o-

Office of the Lone Gunmen  
Alexandria, VA  
Wednesday, 10:30 pm

Frohike reached the door at the second knock. "Guys! They're back!" He held the door for the partners.

Mulder, once again, shepherded Scully through the door first. As Langly and Byers stepped out of the back room, the tall agent smirked. "Moving to the 'burbs? Middle age creeping up on you?"

The office was actually in a two story house not far off the George Washington Parkway.

Langly grinned. "Had to, G-man. Bad karma to stay in a place once you've been hacked." He took the PC from Scully. "You guys okay?"

She nodded. "How do the images look?" She watched three faces light with glee. _How did you find these characters, Mulder?_

"Man, oh man, Doc! That D'Amato guy knew what he had! Where are the notebooks?"

Mulder beamed back at them. "Hidden in several states and municipalities, courtesy of the U.S. Snail. Which brings up something else." He looked over at Scully, who was leaning against a desk. "We want to get the images out on the Net."

She pushed off the support, then nodded. "Remember, as good as these data look, we still don't have the contents verified."

The Gunmen rolled their eyes, groaning in unison.

She held up her hand. "No, hear me out. Mulder and I want to do this for two reasons. First, like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Scientology tapes, these documents should be available to everyone. Let all the experts, both amateur and professional, have a shot at them, so if the contents are fraudulent, then we will know."

Mulder took up the justification from her. "Second, our security. We don't have the FBI to protect us anymore. If we were to hoard these, they could kill us, and the information is safe again. But put these out there, and we, personally, are no more danger to the men in the shadows than we ever were. So guys, want to add a section to your homepage?"

-o-0-o-

Lone Gunmen's Office  
Alexandria, VA  
Thursday, March 7, 1996  
3:00 am

Computers still confounded Mulder, so he had been forced to watch as Scully and the Gunmen sorted and reformatted the data into indexed chunks for users to access. But it was done. His partner had just crossed her arms on a desk to rest her head for a moment.

Leaning into her body, he rubbed her shoulder.

She turned her head to wrinkle her nose at him. "I think some of us could use a shower."

He grinned back at her. "Want to do the planet a favor?"

"Mulder! Go!" She gave him the Look.

The blonde Gunman walked in from their lab. "Doc, we have two, you know, and two hot water heaters. Take all the time you want."

"Thanks, Langly. I'll remember you in my will."

Mulder sent a parting jibe back over his shoulder. "Yeah, you'll get the Red Menace."

-o-0-o-

Washington, D. C.  
Thursday, 3:30 am

The young agent punched in the old man's home phone number. The strategy the Smoking Man had devised was superseded by the information he had to deliver.

"Yes?"

He knew no other way than to say it directly. "Sir, the contents of the D'Amato notebooks have been posted on the Internet."

"So, our errant knight chooses to hide himself in the public eye? We shall oblige. In the next three hours, you will need to..."

-o-0-o-

Lone Gunman's Office  
Alexandria, VA  
Thursday, 7:30 am

Fox Mulder had slept on the couch in the Gunman's living room. So had Dana Scully, but not, however, the same sofa. These were bachelors, after all, so the living room featured two mismatched sectionals and a two-seater.

After a brief discussion with Frohike during which he offered Scully *his* bed, as well as certain other manly services, the tall agent had felt obliged to come to his exhausted partner's rescue. _Or was I really rescuing Frohike from a certain red-headed doctor who could relieve him of those same manly services with a well-placed blow in self defense?_ Not a thought to contemplate on four hours sleep. What he was contemplating, as he lay watching CNN, was his future, or more precisely, his lack thereof.

He felt certain these documents would hold up as evidence of a human conspiracy of silence concerning alien activities during and after the Second World War. But they would do nothing to help him find his sister. Or who had abducted his partner. Or... The list went on.

Scully had been right, last year. They needed the resources of the FBI to pursue their respective quests. But, they were suspended. Only turning themselves in would propel the investigations forward. That, however, was a decision they had to make together, this time, not she or he for both of them. He glanced at his partner, studying the pale, drained face he had seen by his shoulder these past few days, never arguing, even when what they were doing would shatter her world view. _Or would it?_ He needed to know. He slipped off his sofa to sit on the floor by her head.

Mulder touched her hand. "Scully? Are you awake?"

She slipped forward until her head was on his shoulder, her hair falling loosely over his bare arm.

_Well, this was nice, but, I still have to know._ He slid his hand under her shoulders, then lifted her enough to let him settle on the sofa with her head on his lap.

She flipped over, snuggling against the warmth of another body.

_Even better._ But still, not exactly what he was after. _Store this Kodak moment, G-man. You'll need it next time you wake up screaming about Duane Barry taking her._ He shook her shoulder. "Scully, we need to talk."

She sat up. _That did it._ "Mulder, why are you up so soon?" She grabbed his hand, flexing his index finger. "Let me guess, I prick this and out oozes black caffeinated goo, right?"

His hazel eyes glittered. "No, that's decaf." He held up his other hand. "This is espresso."

She punched his shoulder, a little more forcefully than if the gesture was meant as a joke. "Off. I want to sleep at least another sixteen hours."

"I need to talk about our suspensions."

Instantly focused, she twisted her legs around, crossed them, then waited. "What are you thinking?"

He shifted to face her. "That you were right last spring, that we need the resources of the FBI to find out about all the things that have happened to us these past years. This new evidence isn't enough for me..."

She was smiling, now, her big, wonderful smile that melted him. "You want more evidence, Agent Mulder? More concrete proof?" She looked up at the ceiling. "Thank you, Sir, you heard me. Miracles do happen."

"Scully! Stop!" He frowned. "I'm *trying* to be serious here."

She held up her hand. "Okay, Mulder, sorry. I couldn't resist. I don't have a clue as to what to do about our suspensions. Part of me is afraid that if we come in, we'll never be heard from again. Part of me agrees with you." After pulling her knees up to her chin, she rubbed her calves. "And part of me is too tired to think straight, so I'm no good right now for decisions, especially ones like these." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "My Mom doesn't know if I'm alive or dead."

Mulder felt for her. _Oh, Scully._ He rested his arm on the back of the sofa to reach her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I wish it were safe to tell our mothers. But I'm sure they're being watched right now."

She nodded, convinced he was right. "Let's give it one more day. I'm beginning to feel better. Maybe then I'll be ready or maybe we'll know more."

"Sure." He rubbed her arm. Now was not the time to discuss world views.

A voice spoke from the doorway. "Make it a threesome?" Scully threw her pillow at Frohike.

-o-0-o-

Annapolis, MD  
Thursday, 8:00 am

Margaret Scully had spent most of the past week scanning the newspapers and TV for any information about her daughter and Fox. She thought she had seen them in one early still photograph from the explosion of the Palazzo De Medici. They had been running away from the house, together, so they were still alive. But, CNN had never shown that particular photograph again, once the video cameras reached the scene. She was checking the latest when the words 'Breaking News' scrolled across the screen.

"We have new information on the Drug Scandal at the FBI. Early this morning, the agency issued a statement that, and we quote, 'There is no evidence of illegal activity at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.' Earlier indications that the inquiry would be widened to include the CIA have proven false. The reports of drug activity involving the three original agents and the mysterious X-Files have been shown, according to our sources, to have been falsified by a disgruntled former employee at the Bureau. This agent had been partnered with Fox Mulder, the supposed ringleader, at one time, but they had failed to work out. The unnamed agent is believed to have planted evidence in Mulder's home, and paid to have him beaten, for revenge. All charges against the three agents have been dropped, and the FBI considers the matter closed. In other news..."

She muted the TV as the doorbell rang. Through the frosted glass, she saw the rounded head of Walter Skinner. _He must have been told earlier._

When he was inside, he spoke quietly to her. "Margaret, do you know where they are?"

"No. But you could have asked me that over the phone. Who do you think is behind this?"

"I have a suspicion, but I can't really say. If they try to contact you now, please get word to me somehow. I don't think this is all over, yet."

"Walter, what do you know?"

He shook his head.

-o-0-o-

Lone Gunmen's Office  
Thursday, 12:00 pm

Mulder watched the same broadcast, having settled on CNN to avoid the endless infomercials otherwise running. He and Scully had spent the morning with their heads together, formulating a plan to retrieve the notebooks. Langly was reserving seats on a series of flights under assumed names. Byers had contacted banks close to the locations of the P.O. boxes to purchase safe deposit boxes. Frohike was arranging a series of car rentals. The agents would rendezvous in Boston, New York, and finally Rockville, where the notebook containing the information on the silver cylinder awaited them.

"You okay with this, Scully?" He studied her face across the kitchen table.

"This should work. Let's get some lunch. The first flight leaves at 2:00."

-o-0-o-

Post Office  
Rockville, MD  
Saturday March 9, 1996  
10:00 am

She was racing the clock now. The line at the post office had been long so she was behind. _Should have factored in the DC Saturday rush, Dana._ They had intentionally left the notebooks close to Washington until last. In an area with so many working couples, most places of business either adjusted to their customer's schedules or lost revenue, local banks and certain post offices no exception.

Scully was leaving the building when she saw them up the street, three black cars, filled with men in long dark trench coats. _How do they know about this one?_ She ran to her rental, then sped off to meet Mulder. _I have to lose them, and fast._

-o-0-o-

Rockville, MD  
Saturday, 11:45 am

Mulder was waiting in his rented Taurus two blocks from the bank, which closed in fifteen minutes. He heard tires squeal, then his partner's rental car came into view on his left.

She pulled alongside of him, not getting out of her vehicle. "I being tailed. I've lost them, but I'll need to keep them away from you." She crawled across the seat to hand him the package.

He placed it on the seat beside him. When he looked up, she was doubled over again. "Scully! You okay?" _No, G-man, she's not okay._

But, as he expected, she nodded, then slipped back behind the wheel.

"Meet you back at the Gunmen's?"

She nodded again. "Good luck."

They both sped off.

-o-0-o-

Scully saw them when she was about ten blocks west of the bank. so she floored the accelerator, pulling them along behind her. _All three, good._ She turned left, heading south. If she led them in a straight line, they would realize she was leading them away from Mulder and the notebooks. She turned right at a stop sign, cutting off two cars.

She carefully avoided the main thoroughfares, where the police would be. _Wait a minute, Dana, you know Alexandria like the back of your hand, but Rockville might as well be Bangkok. You almost lost the way back to Mulder three times this morning. Where are you?_ She couldn't afford to stop, even if she was lost. But the men behind her sensed her hesitation, so closed in, thinking she was about to meet Mulder.

She veered into an alley on the left. It opened onto a parking lot, where several cars loomed ahead. Scully spun the steering wheel to the right, but she was moving too fast. The car flipped over several times, before coming to rest upside down. But even though she was safe, she knew they were right behind her. She released the latch on the seatbelt, then crawled out through the broken driver's side window.

The deep pain struck again. _Not now!_ The men were out of the cars to shoot at her rental, which exploded as she dove behind a low wall. Their view of her escape had been blocked by the now-burning vehicle, but she couldn't be sure they had broken off pursuit. She ran around one of the buildings flanking the parking lot, then saw a familiar brown rectangular pillar with the white M at the top on each side. She had somehow reached the Rockville Metro station, so she would be safe among the tourists and vacationers.

-o-0-o-

First Maryland Bank  
Rockville, MD  
Saturday, 12:15 pm

Mulder signed the form for the deposit box in his and Scully's names. He followed the woman teller to the back room, where she left him with the open container. He nodded, thanking her, then waited until she left. He placed the notebooks in the lidded drawer, closed and locked it, emerging a minute or so after she did.

Smiling, she waved him out the door, standing in the entrance to lock it after him. As he walked to his car, she punched in a number. "He was here."

-o-0-o-

Red Line  
Washington Metrorail System  
Saturday, 12:55 pm

Scully sank into a seat as the train slid along the now underground rails. She had not been followed into the system. Doubling over, she wrapped her arms around her abdomen. _Not again!_ She had to get back to the Gunmen. _Concentrate, Dana, how many stops left to Gallery Place? Four._

When she forced herself to stand and pace in the car, the pain eased somewhat. Scully knew she would have to be hospitalized very soon, or it would be too late. _I've run us out of time, Mulder._ At Gallery Place, when she called the Gunmen's Office from one of the new phones on the platform, the Gunman she least wished would answer, did.

"Frohike, this is Scully."

"Babe! Where are you?"

"I'm at Gallery Place, and I need someone to pick me up at the south entrance at Huntington."

"Sure, Dana." Click.

If the men in black had somehow caught Mulder, she needed her Mother at the hospital with her. As she boarded the Yellow line south to Huntington, she was working on a plan to get Margaret into DC without using the phones for contact.

-o-0-o-

Lone Gunmen's Office  
Alexandria, VA  
Saturday, 2:00 pm

Scully staggered through the front door to collapse on the nearest sofa.

Having heard someone enter, Byers came out of the large, back room office. "Agent Scully, are you feeling all right?"

"Is Mulder back yet?"

"No. What's wrong?"

"You don't want to know. But I do need you to do something for me. Go to my Mom's house and bring her to Arlington Hospital." She handed him a slip of paper, on which were written the words 'Was he at all proud of me? Starbuck.' "This is proof you know me and aren't trying to kidnap her. Show it to her and she will come with you. Go, Now!"

Byers nodded.

As he left, Scully pushed herself up off the sofa. She walked to the kitchen where she punched Doctor Anderson's home phone number into the wall-mounted phone there.

-o-0-o-

Lone Gunmen's Office  
Alexandria, VA  
Saturday, 2:30 pm

When Mulder pulled up to Langly, the blond Gunman was standing at the street, waving frantically. "It's the Doc, G-man. Frohike is with her. She's collapsed, but won't let us take her to the hospital until you get here."

Mulder pulled the passenger door open, then the two men ran into the house. "Scully!"

She was curled in a ball on the sofa.

Frohike was at her head, afraid to touch her.

Mulder knelt by her. "How bad is it?"

She looked up at him. "Is it safe?"

He nodded.

She groaned through gritted teeth. "It's bad. I already sent Byers for my Mom. Take me to Arlington Hospital. Dr. Anderson is waiting."

He picked her up. _She's too light!_

"Your leg, Mulder."

"Forget my leg, we're going." Once in the car and underway, his frustration overtook him. "Why Anderson, Scully? Isn't it his fault you're like this?" He looked down at her.

She had lain down on the seat with her head against his thigh.

"If it were a faulty procedure, I would have bled to death the first day. No, I think something else is causing this. Since he did the original surgery, he will know if there have been changes."

He kept one hand on her shoulder for the rest of the drive.

-o-0-o-

Arlington Hospital  
Arlington, VA  
Saturday, 3:30

Walter Skinner walked through the glass doors of the emergency room, looking for Mulder. He spotted the tall agent slouched in a chair by the window, staring out moodily. To someone who did not know him, he would seem absent-minded and detached, but the AD knew better. Dana Scully's condition must be serious, so serious, in fact, that he was able to walk up to his agent and stand close without the younger man noticing him. "Agent Mulder?"

The dark-haired man shrugged. _Him again._

"How is Agent Scully doing?"

Mulder finally looked up at his superior. "She's been in there for an hour. A nurse told me they had to give her one and a half units of blood before they could operate. I don't know any more." He turned back to the glass.

Skinner sat in the chair on the other side of the window, hoping to draw Mulder's attention.

Abruptly, the agent faced his superior. "Sir, why are you here?"

"I told Margaret Scully to contact me if either of you tried to reach her. She called before she left Annapolis. We need to talk, Agent Mulder."

"Not now!" He pulled himself to his feet to stalk away.

Skinner shifted to look at him. "They're giving you the X-Files back, with no strings. You have them where you want them. Whatever you two found and put on the Net scared them. They're watching, waiting, testing." He stood. "But, I have strings, Agent Mulder. I have been told to keep you two under closer surveillance, even spend time in the field with you, or lose my position. I won't be able to shield you from them, then, you know."

The tall agent spun around to stare his boss in the eye. "Who, Sir, them, or *him*? We're all puppets to *him*, aren't we?" He began pacing. "He just flicks his cigarette, and we all dance to his tune. He decides, we, die." Mulder sank back into a chair, his head in his hands. Fixing his gaze on the floor, he words emerged voicelessly. "My father, Melissa Scully, Guiliano D'Amato, with all his wealth and good intentions." He chewed his lip. "Scully."

"Agent Mulder! Listen to me!"

Full of fury, Mulder leapt to his feet. "No Sir, I won't! Agent Scully is dying!" He shivered, then, exhausted, his rage folded into nothingness, then he collapsed on the chair. "She was bleeding to death inside, but she wouldn't stop, not until the information we had was safe."

"Sound like anyone I know?"

Mulder shook his head, heedless of the other man. "They're more powerful than she is, than I am." He choked on a sob, then turned away from his boss. "I don't want to search alone anymore, Sir."

Walter Skinner touched Mulder's shoulder. _What can I say to him? For all I know, he may be right._ He sat beside the younger man, each lost in his own thoughts.

-o-0-o-

Arlington Hospital  
Arlington, VA  
Saturday, 4:15 pm

Margaret Scully entered the waiting room at the same time as Dr. Anderson, so she steeled herself for the worst. _Dana sent for me. Fox and Walter are here. It must be bad._

The two agents walked over to the doctor.

Doctor Anderson was removing his gloves as he turned to Margaret. "Mrs. Scully, it was touch and go there for a while, but she's out of the woods. She's lost a lot of blood, and her recent weight drop has left her weakened, but with time and rest, she will recover."

"What was it?"

Mulder touched Margaret's arm, offering support as she faced the doctor.

After a sigh, the surgeon rubbed his face. "We found a foreign object working out of her abdominal wall. What little was left of her uterus was shredded in the process, so we had to remove the little remaining tissue as well."

Mulder stepped back as if he had been struck.

Margaret gasped, then covered her mouth with her hand.

"It must have been disturbed by the beating. During the original surgery, we were so concerned with getting the damaged tissue we could identify out of her to prevent infection, we didn't catch it. I've never seen anything like it."

Margaret's eyes were burning now, boring holes in the doctor's face. _Another implant! When?_ "How long had it been inside my daughter? Two years?"

He shook his head. "No, more like six months. I don't think it was there from the time of the abduction, if that's what you mean, Mrs. Scully. I know it was later than that." He looked from one stunned face to another. "You mean she didn't tell you?"

Now it was Mulder's turn. "Tell us what?"

Mother and partner exchanges bewildered glances.

"That she had been suffering from abdominal cramping for the past six months. She had initially attributed it to work-related stress."

Mulder rubbed his face. _Wonder why._

Anderson balled the gloves in his palm. "But as the pain grew worse, she began coming in for tests. She was very concerned about cancer, which is odd, for such a young woman. Is there a problem with cancer in either your or your husband's family's past, Mrs. Scully?"

"Breast cancer took my mother-in-law at 56, but other than that, no."

The doctor shook his head. "Well, she must know something I don't, then. However, I think between the two surgeries, we should have cleared these problems up. Mr. Skinner?"

Walter Skinner nodded.

"Expect her back in about a month, no sooner, not after what she's been through." The physician eyed the dark-haired agent. "You could use some rest yourself, Mr. Mulder."

The three smiled in response. Each of them knew how poorly Mulder adjusted to forced inactivity.

Margaret laughed. "I think between Fox and myself, she'll rest this time, doctor."

"Very well. She's in recovery now. I'll be in touch."

-o-0-o-

Arlington Hospital  
Room 413  
Saturday 8:00 pm

Dana Scully coughed once, then stirred.

Margaret Scully leaned forward to call to her daughter. "Honey?"

"Mom? Mom, are you here?" Scully opened her eyes.

Her mother was bending over her, her partner watching from the foot of the bed.

Margaret took her hand. "You sent a limousine service, dear. A most pleasant young man."

The partners smiled at her description of Byers.

Margaret smoothed the hair off her daughter's forehead. "How do you feel?"

"Like I've had the Battle of the Little Big Horn fought on my stomach. What was it?"

Mulder gripped the rail at the foot of the bed. "An implant, Scully."

Both women looked over at him.

"They took out an implant from about six months ago. I talked to the OR tech once you were out of recovery. It was corroded so it probably didn't work."

Margaret gasped. "Fox, please!"

Scully shook her head. "No. Mom. I think he's right. It would not have been stress, not like this. Do you still have it, Mulder?"

He lifted a capped tube out of his pocket. "Right here. When we get back, *we'll* have the lab look it over, right, *partner*?"

Margaret saw the silent exchange pass between the two. They *had* worked through their differences, just as Byers had told her. "Well, Dana, now that you're back with us, I'm afraid I have to go home. Just before your Mr. Byers arrived, Bill Jr. called. He should be arriving with the children in two hours. Take care of my daughter, Fox."

Mulder nodded to Margaret as she left, then walked around to sit on the bed by his partner. "Why didn't you tell us, Scully?"

She looked up, surprised. "We weren't working so well together, in case you've forgotten, and Mom was still pretty upset about Mel. I thought I could handle it on my own. I am a doctor, you know."

He reached out to her.

Scully held herself still as he slid towards her, then slowly folded his arms around her. Suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the events of the past few days, she clutched his ribs as she relaxed in his hold, pressing her cheek against his shoulder.

His relief and sorrow intermingled in a shaky whisper. "And you are also your own worst patient, I think you told me not too long ago, Doctor Scully." His fingers traced her bare, knobby spine. _No special privileges for you this time._

They let silence settle over them.

Still groggy, she rested there until his whisper fell in her ear. "Please, don't keep something like this from me, ever."

Scully nodded against his arm. "I don't remember any lost time or any vivid dreams of floating. I don't know when this would have happened."

Stifling his own tears, he shushed her. "It did, and we'll deal with it, but later, as a team." He held her up to look in her face. "We have the X-Files back. No strings. We're alive, somehow, and free to do our work."

She slipped back onto the pillows. "They'll keep coming, won't they?"

He nodded. "You and I, though, we'll be ready."

-o-0-o-

Apartment 5  
Alexandria, VA  
Saturday, May 11, 1996  
10:00 am

The Pomeranian was barking at the door. Dana Scully came out of the bedroom to open it, hopping on one foot as she tied the laces of a white walking shoe. She had just finished her morning run and shower.

Since March, she had placed herself on a strict low-fat diet _No more double pepperoni, Mulder._ and aerobic exercise with weight training to retain bone mass. She wanted to avoid taking estrogen as long as possible. She was, as her partner exulted in reminding her, buff. The strength felt good after the pain of the fall and winter. She never wanted to be that drained again. "Just a minute!" She unlocked the door.

"Spare some water for a dying man, Scully?" Mulder was drenched in sweat after finishing an eight mile run.

"Mulder, I thought you would be in Chilmark this weekend. It is Mother's Day tomorrow, you know."

He followed her into the kitchen, where she filled a tumbler with water from the tap before handing it to him, then he sat at the kitchen table to drink. After he drained the glass, he pushed it around the table with his finger at the base. "She canceled. I had reservations at one of her favorite places in Boston, but she called this morning to say she would be too busy to see me." His sad eyes fixed on hers.

She wanted to reach for his shoulder, but waited. _What is it with his family?_

"I'm trying. You and your Mom keep telling me what a great lady she is, but she doesn't want to spend any time with me. Why will she spend hours with your Mom and not with her own son? Is she afraid of me?"

Scully pulled out the kitchen chair across from him to sit. "I don't know. I'm glad our mothers get along, now that they're both alone most of the time. But, whenever she and my Mom visit, all she wants to do is talk about you. Mom calls me before she arrives to get updates so she'll be properly primed with details. It's like she's really worried about you but can't talk about it. Give her time, Mulder, February was a bad for both of them."

Mulder glared at the floor. "Hey! Don't eat my leg!"

The Pomeranian was licking the sweat off Mulder's left calf.

He huffed. "Bruckman was right, he *is* a monster, a salt-sucking vampire, as a matter of fact."

She bent down to save her partner from the fearsome beast. "Hey, Wonder Boy, lets go sit on our pillow, okay?" She tucked the dog under her arm.

Mulder followed his partner and a wagging red tail into the living room. _Wonder Boy now, is it?_ "You're spoiling him, Scully. He has his own bed, baskets of toys, and his own window seat. No dog should have it so good."

She smiled up at him, silently thanking him again for letting her lean on him during her recovery. _Jealous?_ "Well, partner, sometimes it's nice to be spoiled."

He met her eyes. _Anytime._

The phone buzzed from her coffeetable. "Oh, let me get that." She put the receiver to her ear. "Scully. Yes, this is she. You're at Georgetown? Okay, sure, we'll see you at one then."

He queried for the caller's name with a silent, "Who?"

Shrugging, she terminated the call. "That was a Professor Edward Cooper. He teaches History at Texas A&M, World War Two history, Mulder. He's here for a conference and wants to talk to us about the D'Amato papers. Need a lift home so you can shower and change?"

"Read my mind, partner."

-o-0-o-

Georgetown University  
Saturday 12:45 pm

Edward Cooper glanced up at the approaching pair. The petite agent was good looking, for a woman. _But her tall partner._ Such a man was wasted on them. Graceful hands. Tall, slender body. Great legs. _Dream on, Edward. A short, overweight, and bald professor in his sixties doesn't have a prayer._ He rose to shake their hands. "Thank you for coming, Mister Mulder, Doctor Scully. Have a seat."

They were meeting in the outdoor dining area of a small cafe close to campus.

Professor Cooper focused on Mulder. "Let me be blunt. Do you have the original documents of the images posted on the Web?"

The agents exchanged a glance, then Mulder nodded.

The historian sighed. "Good. I needed to hear that. Have you made any effort to have them authenticated?"

Another exchange, but this time the woman spoke. "Yes, we have had some of the documents tested. The paper, inks, and binders are all of the right age. The chemicals used in the photographs are consistent with those common at the end of the war, right down to the substitutions used to compensate for shortages."

Now, Mulder took up the story. "For security reasons, we have separated the documents into several groups, kept in different locations that only Scully and I know about. We have had to move some of the papers from their original sites, when threatened with discovery."

Cooper ran his hand over the bulge of his middle. "Thank you. I suspected as much. I'm glad you put these images on the Web. But you should have put them in a more conspicuous place, not in the Lone Gunmen's site. People don't take them too seriously, you know."

Yet a third exchange, with smiles.

Cooper continued. "I asked you to come here, not to my office down south, because the research I needed them for is unfunded, in fact scorned by my superiors."

The male agent nodded. "We're familiar with your problem, Sir."

"But, with those documents, I think I now know the answer to an important historical question. Specifically, why the German rocket work was suspended."

Scully frowned. "I thought those rockets were shown to be useless against Great Britain due to guidance and control problems."

"Precisely. Other researchers had always assumed the Germans intended, as did we, to use their weapons against the enemy. But I believe they never meant to do so at all."

Not believing his ears, Mulder shook his head.

Cooper paused. "I'm sorry, let me start at the beginning. The work with the rockets was conducted under strict security. Some of what I am about to tell you has only recently come to light, with the end of the Soviet Union. However, the broad outlines of the story were well known to most of the Allied commanders."

Mulder glanced as his partner. "Why does that not surprise me?"

Cooper frowned at the comment. "The German engineers were well aware of the problems with their rockets, and reported these facts, in great detail, to their superiors. They recommended that the work either be funded and staffed at much higher levels, or abandoned."

The dark-haired agent looked quizzical. "The development continued almost to the end of the war, if I recall my history correctly."

"Yes, Mr. Mulder. But the Fuhrer had different ideas for these new weapons. His favorite composer, as you know, was Richard Wagner. He had his Ring Cycle staged several times for the benefit of the leadership and their families. The part he liked best was the last opera, Gotterdammerung, where the home of the Gods is destroyed in a glorious conflagration. He saw himself as the successor to those ancient beings."

Mulder's lip curled in disgust. "A megalomaniacal monster."

Scully touched his arm, reassuring him about something.

Cooper noted the interaction, but chose to ignore it. "Indeed. But Hitler was given to great fits of depression, and in one of those fits, he wrote a letter, detailing the final conflagration he saw as the fitting end for a leader of his stature."

The partners exchanged amused looks, before Scully indicated with a wave to the professor that he should continue.

"He wanted to wait, should the end come, until his enemies were all around him, then he would rain death and destruction down on their heads from the sky. Most scholars believed this letter was treated as the babbling of a deranged man should be. However, new evidence has come from the former Soviet Union in the form of interviews with engineers on the V-3 project. The interviews, conducted shortly after the fall of Berlin, reveal that for some time, Hitler pushed the rocket research with this goal in mind."

"The V-3 project, Sir?" Mulder prompted.

"Yes, it was to be a larger version of the V-2, that would have carried enough firepower to, with one hit, destroy several city blocks. The project got as far as testing a prototype, before work was halted. Some historians believe the prototype failed, and was exploded over the Black Forest. Other scholars believe the pressing costs of a war on several fronts forced Hitler's hand, and he had to abandon the idea once and for all."

The dark-haired agent leaned forward. "But you don't?"

The professor shook his head.

Mulder looked over at his partner, who had been silent during the later part of the exchange. "Scully, any thoughts?"

She frowned. "Just one. *If* Hitler really intended to do this, and if the allies really knew about it, then why not use the mass self destruction plan as more evidence of Hitler's insanity? Why didn't this come out at Nuremburg?"

Cooper eyed the red-haired woman. _This one is smart._ "That's what your papers have told me. In the interviews with the engineers, they keep referring to a hit of some kind. In fact, they say it over and over: 'ein Schlage, ein Schlage.' They then, to a man, terminate the interviews. I had always believed that they meant that the rocket hit the ground, and remained there, unexploded."

Scully clasped her hands in her lap. "That was common with these early tests, as I recall."

Doctor Cooper leaned forward. "When I initially saw your documents, I thought that conclusion was confirmed. You see, your manifests indicate that the remains of the V-3 prototype were secretly removed from the Black Forest shortly after the war, through this "Mafia" backdoor. But, as I read the papers more carefully, I understood that what they were trying to cover up was that it hit something else while in the stratosphere, or something intercepted it."

Mulder nodded. "And, Doctor Cooper, none of the Allied or Axis forces had anything that could reach those altitudes, that we know of."

"Exactly, the Prototype struck an unknown object while in the atmosphere. The two objects fell to the earth together, and the Allies retrieved *both* objects from the Black Forest, Agents Mulder and Scully." His voice dropped to a whisper.

The two agents leaned forward.

Cooper was thrilled to have this excuse to move closer to the tall man. "Your silver cylinder was what the V-3 collided with. The technology contained within would have been priceless. Whoever controlled it could, if they understood it, have had an overwhelming advantage in the developing Cold War. That is the truth your adversaries are trying so hard to protect. I only wish the object still existed, since there is much we could probably still learn from it, but I'm sure it has long since been destroyed."

-o-0-o-

Intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Grace Street  
Georgetown, Washington DC  
Saturday, 2:30 pm

"Why do you want me to stop here, Mulder?"

The tall agent walked to Scully's door to open it with a flourish. "Feel like a stroll today, Ma'am?"

She smiled broadly in response. "Yes, that would be wonderful."

He tucked her hand in the crook of his arm.

Her lips twitched at the gesture. "You always surprise me."

His forehead crinkling, he began moving forward. "Why?"

She looked up at him. "I would have expected you would have been gloating all the way home about a fellow believer, one who interpreted the data as you would."

He glanced down at her. "Yes, I guess I would normally have. Besides, his is only the first interpretation we've heard. Although it makes a lot of sense. But, today, no." He listened to the rustling at their feet as they shuffled through the old decayed leaves from the previous winter. "I thought of the water running along the Canal, about how peaceful it is. It reminds me of something."

They had reached a small bridge, so they climbed the stairs, crossed, then stepped down to the C&O canal towpath. The gravel of the towpath crunched as they walked in silence, side by side. Her hand had slipped out of his arm as she tried to keep up on the uneven ground, so they hiked close to each other, occasionally brushing arms or shoulders, exchanging quick glances.

Mulder took a deep breath. The water, the warmth, the freedom he felt here. Yes, he was beginning to remember that other life in Montana he saw in the dream. _Vision? Memory?_ That life where money meant nothing, the woman who made him laugh. He looked down at his partner, who had turned up her face to catch the warmth of the sun. He reached over to squeeze her shoulder, ever so lightly, then dropped his hand to his side.

She checked his face.

He looked happy.

She wasn't worried.

-o-FINIS-o-

SINS OF THE FATHERS

=====o==========================o=====

_Sins of the Fathers_ released to ATXC: 2/17/96

Note to the reader: The stories listed as authored by Mary Ruth Keller are all in a single universe, the Kuxan Sum Cycle. While each is an investigation that stands alone, they should be read in the following order for the plot and character developments to make the most sense.

**The Caroline Lowenberg Trilogy**

_Sins of the Fathers  
__Xibalba  
__Twelfth Night  
_Saytr Play: _Rustic Suite_

**The Dana Scully Trilogy**

Prologue: _Time Out of Joint  
__Passages in Memory  
_Interlude: _Roman de la Pendrell  
__Archaea  
__Zurvan  
_Saytr Play: _Anath_

**The Sandra Ann Miller Trilogy**

_Chermera_

More following...

=====o==========================o=====


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